Circuit network
by epicgamer484
Summary: it had been 5 years since Kiritsugu's death and Shirou was frustrated with his poor progress in magecraft, when had learned to turn his nerves into permanent circuits it caused him to change the fate of both him and the people he meets forever, inspired by Nerve Damage by CrossyCross.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello viewers, epic gamer 484 here and welcome to the first chapter of my new fanfic Circuit network which was inspired by this brilliant fic that is unfortunately on Hiatus called Nerve damage by CrossyCross, in which an AU Shirou Emiya manages to make the nerve circuits he creates every time he needs to perform magic permanent, giving him a almost broken level of prana output beaten only by Illyasviel von Einsbern, and Heavens feel Sakura.**

**Now the reason I am doing this instead of Fate/keyblade of wind is that I unfortunately lost interest for a while and decided to try something different in order get my creative juices going again, so for now consider that Fic on Haitus until I decide to go at it again.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters associated with fate/stay night, they are property of Type-moon, besides if I did own them I would make Shirou less whiny and more badass.**

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**Circuit Network chapter 1**

Shirou Emiya, son of Kiritsugu Emiya, a 12-year-old middle school student, and the unofficial 6th head of the Emiya household, as well as a magus-in-training was at a loss.

Which was understandable as he just lost his adoptive father to an unexplained illness a few months ago before promising him under the full moon that he would become a hero of justice that could save everyone, like those featured in American comic books and Henshin TV shows, but the biggest problem he currently faced was that he currently didn't have the skills or the physical abilities to accomplish such a feat, which was why he was currently sitting in the tool shed on the compound that served as his workshop, for which he could practice his half baked mage-craft that his father taught him and maybe brainstorm a way to acquire the skills necessary to become a superhero.

The story of how Shirou was sitting in his shed sprouting out nonsense about wanting to become a hero of justice could be traced back 5 years ago during the Fuyuki city fire that burned away not only Shirou's home and parents, but also any memories from before that fateful day and would had perished in the fire as well had Kiritsugu not saved him from death and rushed him to hospital to get treated, the next thing Shirou remembered was Shirou waking up in a hospital bed covered in bandages, he then saw a black haired man with lifeless eyes walk into the room and greeted him "hello there, how are you feeling?"

At this question the miraculously healed boy weakly replied, "I'm fine thank you…but where am I old man I?" to which the older gentleman chuckled back "old man? Yes I guess I do seem to have aged a bit, and to answer your question you are in the hospital"

This had surprised the young boy as he asked the black haired man why he was here in the first place.

At his question the older gentleman's turned sour as he said in sadness " there was a big fire where you lived that took the lives of over 500 people, only a few dozen survivors were spared, including yourself."

This had saddened the injured boy as he thought about the countless innocents that were lost in that single night, at which point the mysterious man continued "since you were the only one to make it out of your home alive I'm afraid you only have two options available to you."

He the walked closer to Shirou's bed and held up two fingers to empathise his point "you will either be sent to the local orphanage and wait to get adopted" he then put on a weak smile and continued "or you can go with this mysterious stranger whom you've just met and live with me"

After hearing what he had to say the red head contemplated his options, just like what the man said his home and family was destroyed in the fire, and he had no idea if he had any relatives or not, which means that he would become a ward of the state and get sent to an orphanage until he's lucky enough to get adopted, on the other hand he could go with this complete stranger who he never met before in his life.

Actually that wasn't completely true as he remembered a scene during the fire that was imprinted into his memory, this was when his legs finally gave way after waking through the wasteland and had resigned to his fate as he began to lose consciousness, however during the decent into darkness a voice called out to him to live and not die, as he opened his eyes he was greeted with the sight of the black haired man looking down on him with tears in his eyes, however they weren't ordinary tears as they were ones of joy at the fact that boy was still alive, it was at that moment that Shirou had only one thing on his mind.

"I wish I could be that happy"

With the newly acquired knowledge that the person in front of him was the one who saved him from the fire, the young redhead's mind was set "okay I'll go with you Old man"

"Call me Kiritsugu, Emiya Kiritsugu" the identified man said as he smiled and was about to walk away before saying "oh by the way,I have something to tell you….I'm a Magi"

From then on the boy named Shirou became an Emiya and after he was well enough to be discharged from the hospital he went with his new father to an old rundown compound in the residential area of Fuyuki.

Of course for them to even begin to live in the house they needed to renovate it in order to make it habitable again, so Kiritsugu hired a construction crew to fix the place up while Shirou did what he could to help out by carrying boxes around. Once that was done they began living together as a family that also came with a few oddities along the way.

First was that Kiritsugu would leave for months on end without telling Shirou where he goes, leaving the 7-8 year old to watch the house while Taiga Fujimura, the granddaughter of one of their neighbours visits from time to time. The second oddity was that Kiritsugu Emiya was a terrible cook as in the catch water on fire and use coffee to make burgers kind of terrible, so Shirou was to learn how to cook lest they rely on takeout every-time and he was pretty damn good at it too.

The third and final oddity was that the previously mentioned Taiga would come round every night unannounced and stay for dinner, this had suspiciously started around the same time Shirou learned how to cook, of course the kid didn't mind as he considered the brown haired teen family.

Despite this Shirou could honestly say that those were the happiest days of his life, however he also felt that something was missing and so after a few months he came to a decision.

"Can you please teach me mage-craft?" Shirou asked his father every now and again to agree to teach him the magical arts of Thaumaturgy however every time he asked his answer was always the same.

"No" said the eldest Emiya.

This routine had continued for two years because of the stubbornness of both father and son until Kiritsugu Emiya decided to cave in and finally agree to teach Shirou Mage-craft.

The first thing he taught him was the step's on how to 'open' a person's circuits in order to gather the prana needed to perform Thaumaturgy, however because Kiritsugu was such a bad teacher the young magus-in-training misinterpreted what his father was trying to say and thought that mages needed to **create **new circuits every time they needed to perform mage-craft, he then decided to try out his horribly wrong way of opening ones circuits and proceeded to convert a part of his nerves into a make-shift magic circuit, which is akin to shoving a hot metal rod through your spine, and his father was non the wiser.

The second bit of magic his father taught him was **Structural Analysis**, an ability shared by magi that lets them scan an object for information about the components that make up its construction, this was an ability that Shirou had skill in as he was able to correctly guess the components of a specific object he could get his hands on, from bits of junk in the shed, to appliances in the kitchen, and even junk that Fujimura Taiga brings round every once in a while, however to most standard magi this ability was considered useless but Kiritsugu told him that most mages overlook certain useful abilities due to their arrogance and told his son not to get disheartened by the stereotype that mages seem to employ and continue to practice **Structural Analysis.**

The third thaumaturgy technique Kiritsugu taught him was **Projection** magic, which involved shaping a person's prana into a specific shape or form, however projection was an incomplete art and was considered useless to modern magi as the projected object only lasted a few minutes and had the durability of toffee, the reason magi even have this technique is because beginners of the craft use this art in order to practice shaping their prana in preparation for more complex arts, plus the fact that projection is mostly used to create disposable ritual items.

What Kiritsugu failed to notice at the time was that Shirou didn't have a full understanding on how projection worked, and so the young boy thought that you needed to know what the object you were trying to make was composed off, and so he devised step-by-step instructions on the construction of a projected object based on information he was able to gleam from the original using **Structual analysis.**

These steps included:

Judging the concept of creation

Hypothesizing the basic structure

Duplicating the composition material

Imitating the skill of its making

Sympathizing with the experience of its growth

Reproducing the accumulated years

Excelling every manufacturing process

With these extra steps it was possible to create stable replicas that could exist from hours, to days, and even months based on the 'weight' of its existence, of course Shirou being the clueless idiot that he was didn't realise this fact, and it would be years before he fully understood what he had accidentally achieved.

The final bit of Thaumaturgy that Kiritsugu taught Shirou was the art of **Reinforcement, **which involved filling the holes in an object's structure or 'existence' in order to both strengthen it, this requires a keen insight about the targets structure as the object would be considered 'complete' and so any mistakes would instead result in the object treating the foreign prana as poison resulting in the object or person receiving damage, it is a difficult field of Thurmaturgy and is therefore overlooked by magi who pursue easier forms of mage-craft that deliver the same effects at a lower risk. However if a mage were to succeed in reinforcing an object or oneself then they could gain a number of benefits, for example strengthening an objects 'existence' can result in a knife becoming sharper, food and drink becoming tastier, or the speakers of a stereo able to play louder music, on the other hand improving the targets structure grants increased strength and durability, for example if a mage were to reinforce their own body they would be able to run faster, become stronger, and have increased durability.

Of course being the difficult art that it was Shirou had some difficulty with reinforcement due to the frailness of his fake circuits, and had a 50% success rate, which was considered an improvement when he first started.

Thus the adopted son of Kiritsugu continued with his pathetic thaumaturgy skills until that fateful day under the night sky where Shirou had one last talk with his father before he passed away, leaving his son with an impossible dream and half-baked teachings in the mystic arts. This of course bring us up to speed as to why the two-time orphan was sitting in his tool shed going through the steps to create his make-shift circuit, which was so painful it was guaranteed to make a grown man scream in pain, as he felt the feeling of a hot metal rod roasting the inside of his spine he had a sudden idea in his pain-induced mind.

"What if there was a way to keep my circuit sustained without having to create it everything single time?" Shirou thought out loud as he succeeded in forming his newly created magic circuit from his nerves, the boy of course knew it was a crazy idea as his circuit degrades over time as he uses it meaning that he had to create it again every time he wanted to perform mage-craft, which was annoying as nobody wanted to feel a hot metal rod shoved down your spine every time you wanted to perform thaumaturgy and wondered if their was a way to keep his created circuit, which of course led to this crazy idea in the first place.

As he thought of a way to make his insane idea happen he remembered something from his late fathers old lessons about Reinforcement and at the skill could allow him to strengthen not only the structure of an object, but its existence as well.

Normally magic circuits are located in a persons soul, and the thing found in a magus body are the physical manifestations of these mystical converters, however the young Emiya's nerve circuit is made from cannibalising a part of Shirou's nervous system, meaning that that it is a physical presence in his body, and just like any other physical object in the world it can be reinforced.

Normally converting your nerves into circuits was considered crazy and suicidal by magi as it was considered a last resort if their normal circuits were burnt out, or they didn't have enough prana for a particular spell, so by that logic no one would dare try what Shirou was about to do as their basic survival instincts would kick in and prevent them from doing.

However Shirou Emiya was **not **a normal magus, as he didn't have a sense of self-presentation to begin with, besides there was one key thing he learnt from his Father about Magi in general.

"A magus is one who **walks with Death" **Kiritsugu's voice echoed in his sons head as he remembered this vital lesson "your enemy's may kill you, your experiments may kill you, even your own power could lead to your death, one mistake- one mishap and your **Dead" **he had empathisedthat last part to prove his point that Thaumaturgy was not something to play around with and was to be treated with the respect it deserved.

So by that logic, if a normal magus **walks with death**, then what Shirou was about to do would be akin to grabbing Death by the waist and dancing with her before sharing a passionate kiss under the moon-light.

Completely ridiculous and incredibly dangerous if you're not careful, but then again the young Emiya wasn't the smartest kid on the block.

"Well here goes nothing…wish me luck Dad" Shirou prayed as he concentrated on his created circuit by channelling od through the circuit on one end, and coming out the other end as prana, only to direct the converted energy back towards the circuit in order to reinforce its existence.

A Magic circuit is akin to a power plant that converts fossil fuels like oil and coal into electricity which is then sent along the power cables underground to power the various electrical appliances in the city, the circuit works the same way as it converts the outer source 'Mana' (the energy of the planet) or the inner source 'od' (the energy of the human body) into prana buy passing it through a magus magic circuits, and is then used by a mage as fuel to power their mysteries.

What shirou is doing his channelling the od in his body through is make-shift nerve circuit, and then redirecting that converted energy back through the circuit in order to reinforce its existence from the inside-out.

What happened next was unexpected as Shirou was welcomed to a world of **Pain.**

"**AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGH" **the young Emiya screamed as his entire body was assaulted with a feeling that could only be described as someone poured hot molten lava into his nerves as they felt like they were on fire.

"**MUST…..KEEP…..GOING"** the tortured red-head mentally shouted as he concentrated all his willpower to finish the job before he blacks out from the pain that would break a lesser man that wasn't named Emiya Shirou, as the prana inside Shirou forced one of his nerves to do something it was never designed to do the agonising pain strangely forced the Emiya's mind to become crystal clear as it devoted all of its processing power to finish what Shirou started.

This had carried on for 30 minutes, which seemed like an eternity to the Emiya who was in pain before he felt something click in his body before stopping the conversion process and collapsing on the hard stone floor of the tool shed with his clothes covered from head to toe in sweat.

As he lay there for what seemed like an eternity as his body celebrated the blissful release of its torture, the young Emiya finally got up some time later to view the results of his work, "Trace on" he whispered as he recited his personal Aria to trigger a spell of self hypnosis to prepare his mind for handling mysteries.

He then used **Structural Analysis **to examine his body and determine any changes that resulted from his work, what he found was the nerve-circuit he created less then an hour ago from one of his cannibalised nerves except there was something different about it.

When he first created the circuit, it was not as strong as it could have been as it could only generate 10 units of prana at a time and was very fragile like it was made of glass that could crack and shatter as more prana was forced through it, all-in-all it wouldn't have lasted long if it would erode and vanish over-time. Now though after going through that agonising process things were different, it still only produced 10 units at a time but it was more 'solid' then it once was, like the fragile glass was reinforced with liquid metal that hardened around it, holding it in place.

Basically it was like the previous circuit was an old bridge that could collapse at any moment, and the reinforcement procedure was akin to metal supports being added to it to keep it from collapsing.

After checking that everything was in order the young Emiya decided to test out his newly solidified circuit by seeing if it would last by waiting an hour as his normal nerve-circuits usually last about that long so he decided to go into the house to grab a midnight snack, as he was both thirsty and starving.

(One hour later)

After coming back from the kitchen munching on some leftover rice-cakes, the heir of Kiritsugu confirmed one of his suspicions, it had already been over an hour and his newly created nerve-circuit was still there in his body, Shirou would have celebrated then and there but their was something he needed to try first and proceeded to grab something to reinforce, which he found lying around was a glass cup from the kitchen, he then picked up the fragile object and proceeded to activate his aria.

"Trace on" he concentrated as he identified the gaps in the glass structure so that he could fill them with prana in order to strengthen the object as a whole, as he channelled the od in his body through his new circuit and converted it into prana he then inserted that new energy into the gaps of the glass as carefully as possible.

He then stopped when he was sure that he done enough and preceded to experiment with his new reinforced glass by throwing it against the nearest wall he could find.

As the glass cup impacted the solid concrete wall he was greeted with the sight of the glass not breaking into dozens of sharp pieces all over the floor, but instead saw it remain intact as it fell to the floor and roll towards him until it stopped at his feet.

Time seemed to stop as he processed what he just witnessed before lowering his head to the glass cup by his feet and slowly picked it up in order to get a closer look, there were a few cracks here and there but all in all it proved one simple fact.

Shirou Emiya, son of magus Kiritsugu Emiya, had just succeeded in reinforcement and was ecstatic, not wanting his first success at mage-craft go to his head, the magus-in-training decided to try other bits and pieces around the tool shed, from a old plank of wood and metal bar, to a few light bulbs and cooking appliances that were scattered around the floor.

The undeniable proof of successfully reinforced objects in front of him, the heir of Kiritsugu decided to let it all out and shouted "YEEESSSS" at the top of his lungs and pumped his fist into the air.

"I did it Dad I finally did it, with this I am well on my way to becoming a hero of justice just like you wanted to be" of course as he thought this their was one undeniable thing he had to find out first.

He needed to find out if he could do it again.

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(2 ½ years later)

It had been more than 2 years ago since that fateful day in his tool shed and Shirou Emiya had to admit that he made a fair bit of progress over these 2 years, he still was considered a third rate magus by standards alone, but he was exceptionally good at what he was good at.

For example after he successfully perfected structural reinforcement from practicing for a few months he decided to practice on reinforcing concepts next like improving the sharpness of a knife, the nourishment of food ingredients in order to make them tastier and last longer before going off. However as he continued with his mage-craft training he noticed that he eventually hit a wall in his learning due to the fact that Kiritsugu only taught the boy Structural analysis, Reinforcement, and projection, so he was forced to practice with what little he had.

At first he didn't mind as he was sure that he could be a hero with the skills he already had but there was still the longing to learn more, to ascend towards new heights and it was this frustration that lead towards his fourth skill that he discovered by accident due to his high amount of nerve circuits he created the past 2 years.

Ever since he created his first nerve circuit, he had proceeded to create a new one every night for 2 years and 6 months, meaning that the 365 circuits he made for one year was added to the 365 he created the next, add in the 182 circuits from the previous 6 months gave him a total of 912 nerve circuits, giving him **OVER** **9000** units of prana to use.

It was this large amount of prana that lead him to develop the skill he accidently discovered one Sunday night.

He had just come back from his part time job at Copenhagen, when he came back he immediately proceeded to the Dojo after having dinner with Fuji-nee, he decided to practice self-Reinforcement on a couple of mannequins he made for training purposes, he then proceeded to reinforce his body and rushed towards the targets wielding a shinai in hand hitting the left target 5 times on the right side, left side, left shoulder, right shoulder, followed with an overhead strike on the straw filled targets head.

This had lasted a total of 5 seconds, 3 to get to the mannequin and 2 to strike it 5 times.

This had frustrated the Emiya as it was the same time for the previous 10 training bouts with only a few milliseconds taken off or added to his previous times, this meant that he had reached the limit of his reinforcement skill due to his mage-craft training being incomplete.

His skill with the reinforcing arts was excellent but that was it, the skill required filling the gaps in a target that is already considered 'complete', pushing it any further without proper guidance would prove disastrous to the young teen if he did it wrong so he didn't advance any further then what he was capable off.

He needed something else, something that would allow him to break the metaphysical wall that surrounded his current abilities and grow stronger as a result, it was then that he remembered something that was written in his fathers old notes when he was searching through Kiritsugus old stuff one day, it was located on a small hand written journal that was a little burnt but was still readable and contained various bits and pieces of information such as knowledge on various mystic codes, Jewelcraft, magic circuits and their affects on the human body.

However it was something on page 35 that caught his attention

It was a personal note from his father about a certain swordswoman that he met a few years before his death but didn't write into detail about who she was or what she looked like, what he did write down was what she could do and how she responded to various situations, one of these skills of hers was a variant of Reinforcement called** Prana Burst.**

This incredibly dangerous yet effective skill required packing a part of the practitioner's body with prana like the arm or the forearm, and then instantly expelling the energy like a jetburst, based on this it is possible to launch the user with the thrust of a rocket, or deliver blows with the potency of a shotgun, Kiritsugu wrote in his notes that the original practitioner mainly used that this skill for defence and high speed movement.

He also wrote that she was one of only a handful of people who could use this skill safely due to the inhuman levels of Prana expelled in its use, however despite the heavy energy cost, it allowed the user to fight on even grounds with inhuman opponents due to possessing a physically weak body since birth.

It was at this flashback that Shirou realised something, the **Prana Burst **skill featured in Kiritsugu's journal required inhuman levels of prana, and Shirou could use a total of 9120 units of prana due to his circuits, he put the two facts together and decided he might as well try it out. With that he walked to the other side of the dojo opposite the mannequin on the right, he then proceeded to try out the skill by bending his knees with his right foot in front of his left and his shinai to his side.

"Trace on" he said as a golden web of interconnecting threads appeared in his minds eye and activated a fourth of the threads, converting the mana in the air into prana to be used by the red-headed magus, the reason he did this was because despite his impressive physique for someone his age, the fact remained was that he didn't have enough Od necessary to produce the amount of prana that he needed so instead he fell back to what his dad told him about the conversion process of od and mana to prana and drew in the mana around him in order to convert the ethereal substance into a form of energy that he could use.

He then concentrated the prana into his arms and legs, before reinforcing his limbs to contain the energy, before instantly expelling the energy as he proceeded to run, cracking the floorboards under his feet and sending him flying towards the target before releasing the energy from his arms as his shinai impacted the target and sending it flying towards the other side of the dojo, leaving a crack in the wall where the mannequin impacted.

Time seemed to stand still as the young Emiya waited for his brain to catch up so it could process what just happened, before when he was using normal reinforcement it had taken him a total of 5 seconds to reach the target and pummel it into submission. Now though, it had only taken him an instant to reach the target and only one strike from his weapon to completely destroy the mannequin if the mangled remains of the straw filled target was anything to go by.

And he had done it all in the span of 1.20 seconds, a new record.

Normally Shirou would be jumping for joy at his accomplishment but there were a few things about his experiment that he needed to take note off first, these included the fact that he was feeling extreme pain in his arms and legs but he had an immensely high pain tolerance so he could still move around, there was also the fact that the shinai he was using couldn't survive the recoil of his strike and split in half when he hit the target, this meant that if he was going to use **Prana burst **effectively then he needed to use stronger weapons overwise they would collapse from the recoil.

With that in mind he made a mental note to get weapons made of stronger materials like steel, but first he needed to clean up before fuji-nee came round.

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It had been a month since Shirou had successfully pulled off **Prana burst **and the son of Kiritsugu could honestly admit that the results from his training regimen paid off, before he could only keep the skill going for 5 minutes because his body wasn't used to handling that much Prana at once, but now after a month of physical conditioning he could now keep it up for between 20-30 minutes before he ran out of Mana to convert.

He also discovered that any swords or metal bars he got his hands on could endure the strain of his **Prana burst **skill as long as he reinforced it before hand, of course Shirou made sure not to use it during his spars with Fujimura Taiga as that would be cheating, of course he was tempted to use it once or twice just so that Taiga would stop rubbing her victory in his face every time he lost but a hero is above that right?

That's not to say he didn't use the skill for 'other' uses as he often traversed Fuyuki City at night in order to test just how fast he could go and how far he could jump from building to building, he may be a distorted goody two shoes who isn't the type to go out with friends but that doesn't mean he doesn't know how to have fun.

But that wasn't important right now as the morning rays shined through the tool shed that he slept in again after staying up late to work on his mage-craft, the red-head then decided to go back into the house in order to change out of his work clothes and into his middle school uniform before Fuji-nee came round for Breakfast.

With him washed and showered, he then changed into his uniform that was cleaned and left out to dry last night before heading to the kitchen in order to cook breakfast he decided to do something a little special since it was near the end of his semester and decided to cook some Japanese hamburgers for breakfast, he then wondered how Fujimura Taiga liked hers.

"Shirooou, I'm hungry" ah speak of the devil as the familiar voice of his sister figure and guardian came from the front entrance, deciding to ask her how she liked her breakfast Shirou asked "Fuji-nee I'm making Japanese ham-burgers for breakfast today, do you like yours medium or well done?" with that he continued to cook the meat patties in the frying pan before hearing Taiga shout back "well-done please Shirou" and proceeded to leave Fuji-nees portion on the pan to cook more before getting his pattie off the pan and proceeded to do the side dishes.

With that breakfast was served as the Emiya hair laid out the food on the table before sitting down and saying his graces before digging in, he then reminded Taiga to say her graces first before she started eating "Mmmm this is good, you know you could start your own restaurant with these dishes Shirou, Its defiantly something to look into as a carrier choice"

"You know I don't have time with that Fuji-nee, what with my part-time job and my entrance exams for High School that's two weeks from now" Shirou replied back as he chomped on a piece of his hamburger before Taiga remembered something "speaking of high school Shirou have you decided where you want to go?" his guardian asked before getting her answer from her charge "I've already decided to go to Homurahara Academy in April, its closest to my house and it even has an archery dojo for club activities"

"Homurahara huh? I think that's where I was conducting my teacher-training, it has a very good educational programme and is co-ed, plus its where I used to go back during my high school days" his Guardian said before continuing "actually Shirou have you thought about any club activities you want to try out? Perhaps kendo maybe?" Fuji-nee said thinking that Shirou would be good In the club due to his excellent skills with the blade, of course Taiga wasn't a slouch either as she was both feared and respected as the 'Tiger of Fuyuki' back during her teen years, in fact she could have won the nationals making her the strongest kendo expert in the country if she wasn't disqualified for leaving a Tiger strap on her Shinai.

"Thanks Fuji-nee but I've already decided to try out Archery, besides I don't think they'll let me in the club in the first place, especially after that 'incident'" this caused Taiga to wince as she remembered the event that happened 2 years ago when the Emiya was still a part of the kendo club in order to practice fighting against human opponents.

Due to his skill in kendo after practicing with Fujimura Taiga every-day he was at a higher skill level then most of the kids in his club including the senior members, this expectedly rubbed his sempais the wrong way at have someone younger then them beating them at practice duels, so they decided to do something in order to 'put him in his place' by getting him to agree to a practice duel against all the seniors or they would chuck him out of the club, being the oblivious idiot that he was Shirou agreed.

However when Fuji-nee heard about the duel she decided that they needed a serious beat-down in order to deflate their egos and for disgracing the art of Kendo, she decided to accomplish this by swapping Shirou's normal practice weapon with 'Tora-Shinai' a cursed weapon passed for generations in the Fujimura family that thrusts for fresh blood.

Needless to say the end result was shirou standing over a pile of the rest of the Kendo club that was rendered unconscious, his cursed shinai purring from the amount of enemies that it got to slaughter. The end result of this fiasco was the Emiya banned from the kendo club but the memory of his one-sided massacre still lingered in the minds of the kendo club as they unconsciously flinched when they passed him in the corridors.

"I said I was sorry" his guardian wined like a little child "I just wanted to make sure that those idiots were taught a lesson, how was I supposed to know my shinai had that kind of effect on people, I thought it was just a make-believe tale grandpa told me"

"Whatever, I'm just hope that the Archery club doesn't have cursed bows or arrows" Shirou said as he sighed at his guardians antics, he loved her like she was his real sister, but sometimes he wished that Fuji-nee would grow up sooner then later, her grandfather still gives her an allowance for gods sake.

It was then that Shirou noticed something after looking at the clock near the kitchen "actually Fuji-nee shouldn't you be at work, its already half past eight" he said which caused the woman-child's eyes to widen in realisation before stuffing as much food in her mouth as possible, she then grabbed the books she came in with before shouting "oh shoot, I'm going to be late, thanks for the breakfast Shirougoodluckwithyourexaaaaaaaaaaaammms" as her voice could still be heard as she rushed out the door at break neck speeds.

At his guardians quick exit Shirou noticed that there was still a little of Fuji-nees breakfast left before sighing and decided to store it later for her lunch, he then finished his meal and cleared the table before getting his stuff ready for the last day of Middle school.

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Today's lessons were alright in his opinion as the teachers went over the different subjects that would probably be covered in the high-school entrance exams, of course Shirou had already memorised the subjects that would be covered thanks to Taiga 'leaking' the info to him due to her working at the school but it never hurt to be careful, with his final lesson over the orphaned hair of Emiya decided to head straight home since he didn't have work today, he had neared the front gates when he noticed something that caught his eye.

It was a high bar that the physical education forgot to put away and was about to go back inside to inform the teacher in charge of the department when a sudden idea lit up in his head, since it was already up he might as well try it out as he wanted to test out how his training went. As he got on the elevated platform he then jumped on the plank to launch him into the air and was almost over the bar but then he lost his momentum and crashed on the air cushion below.

Deciding to try again Shirou picked the pole that fell of and placed it back on the platform before going back on the plank and launched himself in the air and almost over the elevate pole, Keyword 'almost' as he was once again sent falling onto the air cushion below.

Normally someone would give up on the 3rd failed attempt but Shirou Emiya was a very stubborn individual and continuously tried to jumped over the bar and failed every time before something happened on his 14th try.

At that point he was very frustrated with his failing streak and as he bent over on the jumping plank the Emiya had unconsciously activated his nerve circuits and flooded his legs with prana, causing him so sour into the air like a rocket as the prana in his legs were released.

As he soured in the air he mentally chastised himself for accidentally using **Prana** **Burst **when he should have been using his ordinary abilities to jump over the pole, now because of his frustration ridded mind he was now over 10 metres in the air and quickly reinforced himself as the landing was going to hurt.

Sure enough the secret magus came plummeting to the surface and landed on the air cushion with the force of a sack of bricks causing the pole to collapse on top of him in a loud collapsing noise. As he picked himself up from the wreckage he did a quick check on himself to see if anything was broken but found that he hot off with only a few bruises thanks to his quick thinking, he also discovered as he was sent plummeting to the surface that he successfully jumped over the pole after so many failed tries so that was a plus.

"Still it was pretty careless of me to use my circuits out in the open like that, I just hope that nobody…..saw…that" he said to himself slowly as he suddenly grew more pale every second as he was face to pace with a black haired girl with her hair done in pigtails staring at him In shock.

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It was the final day of the school semester as a black haired girl with aquamarine coloured eyes walked towards the front gates of a nearby school in order to deliver some documents to member of faculty which were part of her duties as a member of the student council.

A girl of exceptional grace and beauty, she had excellent grades, was kind to her piers and younger classmates, and was both the most sought after and most envied in her school, however besides all that sparkle and glitter there was a side to the lady like schoolgirl that most people didn't know about.

The black haired girl known by the name of Tohsaka Rin was in fact a Magus.

Being the daughter of a family of mages that watched over the land of Fuyuki for generations she was met with high expectations from the day that she was born, due to being the result of a selective breeding process that dates back hundreds of years since her family lived in Japan during the time of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Since she was old enough to walk she was trained in the mystic arts by her father Tokiomi Tohsaka in order to give her the necessary skills to acquire more knowledge and pass it down to the next generation, so that her family could one-day reach the unattainable dream that all magi strive for.

The route to **Akasha **the root of all things past, present, and future.

However when the young magus was only 7 years old, tragedy struck, her Father Tokiomi Tohsaka left the house one day in order to participate in the holy grail war, a battle royale between 7 magi using 7 summoned familiars called servants to battle each-over for the holy grail, an omnipotent wish granting device.

Before he left he gave some last parting words to her daughter before leaving her his necklace for her safekeeping, a few days later her father was discovered to have been killed during the war.

If that wasn't bad enough, something happened during the war that left her mother Aoi Tohsaka a broken wreck that slowly withered away in the hospital, leaving the young magi an orphan under the guardianship of her Fathers student and the son of the local church priest Kotomine Kirei.

The reason that a family of mages were even allied with the church in the first place was due to the fact that the Tohsakas in general were secret Christians, during a time when Christianity was shunned and any practitioners of the faith were persecuted by the Tokugawa Shogunate, because of this show of loyalty in the face of danger the Tohsaka family were from then on considered allies of the church.

Due to this alliance, the Tohsaka master were on very good terms with the mediator Risei Kotomine, the father of Kotomine Kirei, who was dispatched during the third grail war in order to reduce the number of casualties and property damage that could potentially endanger the war and risk exposing magic to the world, this relationship had carried on to the fourth heavens feel where Risei was once again chosen to act as mediator during the fight.

With the duty of raising the young magus-in-training included in his late masters will, Kirei was charged with teaching Rin mage-craft and managing her families estates until she was old enough to inherit them properly and manage them herself.

And he did a pretty good job teaching her as she mastered the spells located on her family crest, most notably the **Gandr **a Finnish curse that shots a black ball of cursed energy from the tip of her finger and causes physical illness to her target, she was also skilled in a more dangerous form of the curse called **Fin Shot**, which involves pumping the spell with more prana, resulting it in gaining physical characteristics and causing more damage to its target.

The other branch of mage-craft she is proficient in called Jewel-craft, the art of transferring prana into gemstones such as ruby, sapphires, and other jewels like topaz, emeralds, and garnets. She mainly uses this art to transfer her prana into gems on a daily basis, so that she can use them to either power her spells, or use them as magical grenades that explode up to a force comparable to an A-rank attack depending on how much magic was stored in the jewel.

Obviously such an expensive form of mage craft would put an enormous strain on an ordinary magus families finances, however the Tohsakas were wealthy landowners in the past so they had a steady supply of jewels to use for their craft.

Unfortunately with the death of the last Tohsaka head, the lands that the family owned fell into the hands of others due to the incompetence of Kotomine Kirei, leaving only the area around Rins house under her name, so she is limited in the gems she has at her disposal.

Although she suspected that he did it on purpose in order to teach her humility and not end up as a spoilt rich kid.

But that's not what's important right now as Rin Tohsaka has more important things to do at the moment as she was to visit a nearby school in order to deliver some documents, however when she got to the front gates she saw something that caught her eye.

This something was a red headed teen her age trying to jump a high bar that was set up just a bit too high to be considered jumpable by normal standards, normally this wouldn't garter any sort of interest, however the red-head wouldn't give up and tried over and over again to jump over the **BAR** but never succeeded once.

To the black haired magus that was watching, it was comforting to see such passion and drive coming from someone her own age, as all the others in her school were all lazy idiots who were too busy concentrating on hanging out, wearing make-up, or reading manga to really commit to something with all your heart and soul, as someone who acknowledges the importance of hard work it was refreshing to see someone else have that same drive.

As she continued watching him jump, fail, get back up again, jump again over and over for 13 times it was on his 14th try that something happened. As he was preparing to jump, she saw something build up in the base of his legs, like a balloon being filled with air, and as he lifted himself off the air, the built-up energy was released causing to shot into the sky like a rocket before plummeting towards the surface and crash landed on the air mat below, causing it to collapse from the impact.

Time seemed to stand still as both attempter and watcher tried to process what just happened before Rin got her Barings together and contemplated on what to do next. Based on what she saw, the boy that tried jumping over the **BAR** had done something that should have been impossible by normal circumstances, which only meant one thing.

That boy was a magus like her as she clearly sensed the sudden burst of prana from his jump, and he had done it in broad daylight no less, plus judging by is pale expression as he looked at Rin it wasn't intentional, he then opened his mouth and said "look…I know what this looks like, but I can explaaaAAAAAAAAAN" he shouted as Rin ran towards him and grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the side of the school and slammed him against the wall while looking sideways in rapid successful before shouting in his face "Are you stupid?, what did you think you were doing using mage-craft in the open like that"

This had confused the red-head as he suddenly realised something "wait a minute, Mage-craft? You're a magus?" but before he could say thing more he was interrupted by the black haired teen "Don't you dare try to play dumb, I saw you clearly using reinforcement to enhance your jump if you thought you could get away with it with out getting caught you have another thing coming"

"But it was an accident I swear, I didn't even know I used **Prana Burst **until I was off the ground" Shirou said wanting to pacify the clearly pissed teen who replied back "what kind of idiot would 'accidently' use mage-craft, just what had your teacher been teaching you anyway"

"Well it's kind hard for him to teach me anything now, considering that he's dead" the Orphaned Emiya deadpanned which caused Rin to feel like had been slapped, this had caused the Tohsaka to be reminded of the fact that her own teacher/father Tokiomi Tohsaka was deceased, seeing Rins degected face Shirou took a deep breath and said "look its obvious that we got off at the wrong foot, how about we calm down and star over from the beginning"

Hearing the redhead say that, Rin also took a deep breath and said "Fine" before letting him so, giving the 15 year old to straighten himself out before saying "so what do you want to know?"

Not taking her eyes of Shirou, the hair of Tohsaka got straight to the point and said "just two questions, first who are you?" this was simple for the red head to answer as he answered the first question "Well my name is Shirou Emiya, and I'm a third year at Fuyuki Public Middle School, mind if I ask who you are?" Shirou asked which caused Rin to reply back "Its Rin Tohsaka but that's not important now, what I want to know is why you are her in the first place, Fuyuki City is one of the most spiritually rich lands in Japan, so there's no way another magus would come here without some sort of ulterior motive"

"But doesn't that apply to you as well, I mean what would the second owner think if he found another magus trespassing on his or her territory" Shirou answered back which caused Rins eyes to widen, this idiot didn't even know who she was? And he had been living here without that knowledge, just what had his parents been teaching him.

She then decided to let the cat out of the bag by saying, "I AM the second owner, and to answer your question I'm pissed that you had been living in my territory without my knowledge so answer my question already" this had surprised Shirou as to the identity of the person in front of him, he of course was aware that Fuyuki had a second owner thanks to Kiritsugu's lessons but the older man forgot to mention who that person was, it was the main reason why Shirou didn't seek the owner out in order to seek permission to set his workshop in his/her territory.

What a way to make a first impression huh?

But that wasn't important now the unregistered magus processed this info and chose his next words carefully, " I'll be glad to answer your questions miss Tohsaka but I think we should relocate to a more 'private' area as this isn't the place or time to discuss such 'sensitive' material if that is alright with you?"

This had Surprised the second owner at the formal speech that Shirou was giving before realising her mistake, it was only a few minutes since the accident with the highpole and other people would be sure to come running to find out what is wrong, deciding to take Shirou's advice she paused to consider her options before replying "alright, we'll postpone this for now until we are at a more 'private' location, do you have anywhere in mind?"

At hearing Rin accept his suggestion he continued "how about my house, its closest and my guardian is still at her job doing grades so she won't be coming round for a couple of hours, is that acceptable?"

At the unexpected invite by the red-head, Rin decided to accept "fine, lead the way Emiya-kun"

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The walk to his home was tense to say the least, Rin kept giving Shirou warry glances at him like he had some sort ulterior motive, which was standard behaviour for magi, of course the Emiya being the clueless idiot that he was never realised this for the hole trip.

As he walked up to his houses front door the hair of Tohsaka decided to evaluate the home residence of a potential ally or enemy, it was a traditional Japanese size house that was fairy large, to large in fact as it could easily fit a large size family and still have room for more.

The inside that Rin managed to observe was fairly decent as it had wooden floors that were very clean, and a hallway that lead to a medium sized lounge with a fairly stocked kitchen in the corner, as he lead Rin inside he said "do you want anything to drink? Tea or coffee?"

"No thanks" the Tohsaka quickly said "I'm in another magus territory at the moment, how do I know you won't poison them?" this had caused Shirou to frown as he shot back "I happen to take cooking very seriously Tohsaka-san, doing something like poisoning anything I make for any reason is insulting to my pride as a chef."

This had surprised the Average one as she didn't expect him to be serious about something as mundane as cooking, although she's one to talk as she is a very good cook herself, living by herself and having a mabu tofu obsessed priest for a guardian meant that you cook by yourself very often.

"I see, in that case I'll have tea if that's alright" The Tohsaka said to Shirou as he got to making some tea using the finest tea bags he could find, once that was done he set the finished drinks down near his and Rins seats and sat down opposite the black haired girl "Right how about I start from the beginning" after taking her cup and taking a sip the barer of the Tohsaka crest said "fine, go ahead" at hearing this Shirou decided to begin "well to answer your question Tohsaka-san I've been living here with my dad since he purchased the residence 8 years ago, the reason I didn't seek you out is because while my father informed me about the second owner, he didn't tell me who he, or she in your case was, so a apologise if I have offended you in some way"

"That's alright" Rin replied accepting Shirou's apology before saying "what I want to know is why your father was here in my land in the first place" at hearing this the red-head shook his head before admitting "my father wasn't the most talkative person when it came to talking about himself, heck I didn't even know where he goes when he leaves for abroad for a month or two" this didn't make Rin very happy as she said " that's pretty irresponsible of him, I mean wasn't he supposed to be teaching you mage-craft"

"Dad wasn't very enthusiastic about me learning Thaumaturgy, in fact I had to constantly ask him for two years before he agreed to teach me, plus he even said after that I could quit anytime a wanted if it became too much for me" after Shirou said that Rin was in shock about the sheer disinterest about his father teaching the Emiya the family craft, this has quickly turned to rage as she quietly said "are you sure your father was a magus Emiya?"

At this strange question Shirou could only say "huh? Sure he was a magus, he may have been a bit strange and his methods a little unorthodox but he still taught me the best he could"

"BULLSHIT" the Tohsaka shouted, causing Shirou to flinch at the black haired girls unexpected out outburst "your father is someone I would never consider a magus at all" at hearing herself make that uncharacteristic outburst Rin quickly cleared her throat and regained her composure "sorry about that Emiya-kun, but you have to understand that a magus thaumaturgy is not something they truly possess, it is the culmination of their families research that needs to be passed on to the next generation, but your father's careless dismissal for tradition is an insult to magi culture everywhere"

At hearing Rin finish Shirou had to admit that Rin had a point, magi were researchers by nature and the fact that Kiritsugu didn't even try to advance his research mean that he wasn't a traditional magus in the slightest. With that in mind Shirou could only sigh and say "now that I think about it, maybe he really didn't want me to continue his work in the first place, heck he didn't even teach me the correct way to create circuits, although he did teach me Reinforcement, Projection and structural analysis"

At first Rin was confused as to why the red heads father would not want his own son to inherit his work, but dismissed it as she realised something was odd during Shirou's speech "wait, what did you mean by **Create Circuits?" **

At this question the son of Kiritsugu replied "yeah magi create their own circuits right? Well at first I had to create a circuit every-time I wanted to do thaumaturgy, but it would always vanish after I used it, so I had this idea two years ago a few months after my dad died if it was possible to prevent my circuits from vanishing after use, It did hurt like hell though dying it out but I managed to do it in the end, which was pretty impressive as I did it myself without any help" he then thought about something before continuing "Now that I think about it you probably have more circuits then me since you had better training then me being the second owner and all, so how many do you have?"

Rin tried to process what she just heard as there was so many things wrong in that sentence it wasn't even funny, but could only say "I don't know, how many do you have?" and braced herself for something that she probably wouldn't like.

Shirou replied in pride by saying "912 magic circuits, but you probably have more considering you trained longer.

"What?!" she thought out loud, that was impossible the number of magi with more then a hundred circuits could be counted on one hand, and no one alive or human possessed that many circuits.

She had said as much to him.

"But, but I know I'm right, I've been creating those circuits for the past 2 and a half years, so I know that the method works" he then held out his hand to Rin and said "here, analyse my body, their all there to prove my point"

At first Rin was sceptical at Shirou's claim, after-all who heard of a magus that can create magic circuits, the idea was so ludicrous it wasn't even funny, the number of circuits a person has is set at birth and the number doesn't change, but she might as well humour him so she can prove him wrong so she then took his arm and started analysing him.

…..

…..

…

…..

**What****the****hell?**

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"Uh tohsaka-san are you feeling okay, your skin is getting paler by the second" indeed the clueless Emiya was right as Rin went pale after analysing his body that he was worried for her health.

Then she retracted her hand and looked at him with emotionless eyes, in fact she had even stopped moving or even blink, this had worried the red head teen even more as he said "Tohsaka what's wrong? Are you feeling all right? Do you need me to call a doctor?"

Suddenly the air turned icy cold as Rin suddenly developed an evil smile which instantly set Shirou on edge "eh Rin…maybe its just me but it looks that you have a really evil smile on your face" at hearing his nervous voice the smiling girl replied "oh its nothing to worry about Emiya-kun, right now my mind is as wicked as the devil himself" she said in a sickingly sweet voice which scared Shirou to no end.

"I must say Shirou that I was quite surprised by what those circuits you talked so highly about in your body, so much that I wanted you to hear my honest opinion" at that point Shirou could clearly see the dark evil aura that was forming around Tohsaka, which was clearly focusing on him, so much so that he wanted nothing more then to run away as fast as his legs could carry.

But he never got the chance as he blinked and Rin was suddenly next to him without him knowing about it "what's the matter Emiya-kun, there's nothing to be afraid off, I just want you to know my opinion about those **Interesting** circuits you possess" with his escape options sealed and he had nowhere to run Shirou gulped and said "Em Tohsaka-san are you mad at me or something?"

At this question Rin said "was it really that obvious?" causing Shirou to freeze, realising that he was doomed, "now please sit down there Japanese-style Emiya-kun, this will be over in a moment"

Feeling that he might as well go down with his head helf high the Emiya sat on the cushion while Rin sat opposite him.

She then took a very deep breath and shouted "**ARE YOU BATSHIT INSANE?, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING TURNING YOUR NERVES INTO CIRCUITS YOU IDIOOOT!" **at the top of her breath which was so loud that Shirou had to plug his ears to prevent himself from going death.

After making sure that he could hear again the bearer of nerve circuits replied back" I don't get why your so angry at me Tohsaka-san, I mean isn't creating circuits how normal magi do their mage-craft?" with her voice still loud the pissed magus continued "That isn't how it works you scatter brained dunce, magic circuits exist in the soul and have to be 'opened' in order to be used, what you did was turn your nerves into make-shift circuits which I might add is only used by magi as a last resort due to its high-fatality rate even with proper tools and supervision, yet somehow you managed to not only turn 912 of your nerves into circuits which I might add should have made you a cripple but **somehow** your not, and you had already done this many times before without any tools or supervision"

She then took a deep breath and continued "an average magus has only 20 circuits, **I **only have a hundred and that's with my magic crest, so why the hell aren't you **DEAD" **after Rin let herself stop to catch her breath while covered in sweat, the Emiya took a moment to absorb what she said.

If what she said was true, then he had been doing it wrong for years and he never even realised it, why the hell had dad never noticed? He had been risking his life for years and all because he was doing it wrong, of course there was a good side to it as he now had 912 low quality circuits made from his nerves all ready to be used at his leisure.

Noticing that Rin had calmed down somewhat he said "do you want a glass of water?, all that screaming must not have been good for your throat" at seeing her nod back shirou went to the kitchen and got her a glass of tap water "here, this should help"

"Thank you Emiya-kun" Tohsaka-san thanked before chugging the water down with viger, after she finished drinking she put the glass down and said" don't think this lets you off the hook just yet Emiya, what you did with your circuits was crazy and suicidal on so many levels that I cannot even begin to understand what was going on in your mind at the time, what in heavens name made you think it was a good idea to turn your nerves into circuits in the first place"

"Well it seemed like a good idea at the time, and after the first try my thaumaturgy started to improve after I finished as I could only reinforce stuff with a 50% success rate, so I figured I might as well continue as it was helping my mage-craft" at hearing his explanation which caused Rin to develop an eye twitch she sighed and sat back on the floor cushion "honestly, out of all the magi I met over the years you're the first one that I just don't know what to do with, and speaking of insane stunts there's something that had been bothering me for a while now" at Shirous confused face Rin continued "what was that skill you used back at the school?, it wasn't normal reinforcement as the flow of prana I could sense wasn't the same"

At this question Shirou took a moment to think about what she was saying before answering "oh! You must be talking about **Prana Burst" **

"**Prana Burst?" **Rin said with a confused look as she had never even heard of method which after looking at her confused face Shirou continued, "yeah it was a skill that was detailed in my Dad's old journal, you basically concentrate prana into the area that you want to enhance my reinforcement, release it all at once like a jetburst, and reinforce it again giving the user inhuman strength and speed, I mainly used for highs-speed movement and improving the power of my strikes, plus it requires lots of prana in order to use and even I cant use it for more then 15 minutes before I run out, so did you get all that?"

If Rin didn't think Emiya Shirou could surprise her after hearing about those atrocities he calls circuits she had another thing coming, the skill he had described to her was clearly** Not **the Reinforcement skill she was familiar with, in fact she doubted she had even heard of **Prana Burst** to begin with. Based on what she heard it was doubtful that she would ever use it herself as she would be bleed dry of prana in no time, that and she was more of a ranged fighter to begin with.

"I…see, well Emiya-kun I'm sure that is a very interesting skill you have and I would love to see it in action sometime but I think that its already getting late, after all your guardian would probably be coming round soon and it would be problematic if I was seen here with you." Based on what she heard today she really needed to go home and rest as it was draining on her nerves.

It was then the Shirou realised something that he needed to get out the way before she left "oh Tohsaka before you go there's something that I need to ask you first" this had confused the black haired magus as she was curious as to what he wanted to ask "yes? What was it that you wanted to ask Emiya-kun?"

What she didn't expect was for the Red headed teen to get all serious and "Miss Tohsaka, I would like your permission as the second owner of Fuyuki to set my workshop within your territory if that is all right with you" this had caused Rin to blink once then twice before feeling the urge to whack her hand on her forehead as she completely forgot about her responsibilities as the overseer and the fact that Shirou was practicing mage-craft within her land.

Deciding that she might as well get this over with before she goes she said "well I guess its better late then never Emiya-kun, very well you have my permission to set up your workshop on my land however there are a few conditions that I would like to impose first"

This had surprised the redhead but he guess it was inevitable considering that he was operating on her land 'fine what is it that you want Tohsaka-san.

"Oh its nothing serious just more of a request then anything, you see even though my skills in mage-craft are considered first rate it was mostly though self study so I was wondering if we could train together on some days as it would be helpful to have someone else my age to exchange notes and theory's with, besides based on what you told me about your Father he never finished your mage-craft training so I think I can help you with that, that and if I left you alone you'll probably cause an accident like at the school grounds again and risk jeopardising the secrecy of magic"

After reviewing what Rin said in his head Shirou had to admit that it was a fairly decent deal, plus he could afford to exchange some of his secrets to Rin as it wasn't like he made any breakthroughs in mage-craft. Then there were the tips in thaumaturgy that she was offering that would really help with his own training, as ever since Dad died he hadn't learnt any new spells and stuck to improving the spells he already knew.

Coming to a decision the Red head said, "alright you have a deal Tohsaka-san, it's a pleasure to be working with you" as he held out his hand to seal the deal "likewise Emiya-kun". Rin said as she held out her hand to shake Shirous,


	2. Chapter 2

**Circuit network chapter 2**

"This is your workshop Emiya-kun?" a clearly irritated black haired magus as she was lead by Shirou Emiya into the sanctuary where he practices the mystic arts, a forbidden area jealously horded by magi so that their thaumaturgal secrets would not fall into the hands of others, which was just the tool shed in the back of the estate where he keeps his tools for when he fixes Raiga Fujimura's bikes.

(10 hours ago)

It had been a few weeks since Shirou and Rin meet and a lot had happened during that time, from graduating middle school and passing the high school entrance exams, to picking the very same school that they both were going too.

After the entrance ceremony was finished they walked around campus after classes were over to try and see if there were any clubs that the two of them were interested in, at that point there were only two jobs that Shirou Emiya was interested in which consisted off the Archery club and Kendo club, however the Emiya soon found that most of the club members in the kendo club consisted of the very same members who were part of his old club back in middle school and the reason he knew this was because some of the members flinched at seeing him, obviously because the 'Torashinai incident' was still fresh in their mind, with that option out of the window the heir of Emiya decided to check out the Archery club.

The Archery club was in a dojo located by the campus side-entrance, it was a very nice building that had a traditional Japanese feel to it, deciding that he might as well take a look Shirou headed towards the entrance and opened the door to let himself in.

"Excuse me, I'm here for club tryouts is there anyone here that could help me?" he asked which got a reply coming from the centre of the archery dojo that sounded suspiciously familiar "oh more newbies, yes please come in we were just about to begin club tryouts" he then went inside to come face to face with the familiar image of a brown haired woman in yellow tiger striped clothes and overalls who was also surprised to her charge at the club she supervises.

"Fuji-nee?" Shirou asked as he recognized his sister figure and legal guardian which got a response in return as the childish adult "Shirou? What are you doing here? Wait don't tell me are you here for club tryouts?" Fuji nee asked as she didn't think Shirou was into this sort of thing.

This got a reply from the redhead as he said "Yeah I decided to try out a couple of clubs that I was interested in, and since my first choice didn't work out I decided to check this place out" after he said this an arrogant voice met his ears "well look what the cat dragged in, not here with Tohsaka today Emiya" he turned his head to the noise and found himself face to face with another familiar face.

"Shinji" he said neutrally at meeting his former blue-haired friend from middle school, it was a pretty strained relationship what with Shinji's prideful personality conflicting with Shirou's cheerful persona, however when the red-head started meeting Tohsaka more frequently ( in a purely professional manner), The Matou unfortunately saw it differently then what was really going on and seeing as he had feelings for the black haired teen had accused Shirou of stealing the girl from him by going out with her, the red head of course denied this but the blue-head wouldn't listen after that.

It was because of that event that Shirou was forced to end his friendship with the Matou on a sour note, of course Emiya being the kind hearted person that he was tried to patch things up but was shot down each time. And it seemed that the blue-haired idiot knew how to hold a grudge.

"I'm surprised that Tohsaka let you of the leash based on how much you seem to spend time with her, I didn't think you had any time for this sort of thing" Shinji said caused the red head to reply "I already told you ages ago Shinji that Tohsaka and I don't have that sort of relationship, speaking of relationships how's Sakura doing, your not still bullying her are you?"

Who he was talking about was Sakura Matou, the younger sister of Shinji Matou, during his friendship with the blue haired teen he was introduced to the plum haired girl by proxy and they got along well, although she seemed to have a habit of turning red often when he was around that he was worried that she had a cold.

"That's none of your business, and even if I told you I wouldn't let her near a womanizer like you" the blue haired teen said which almost got a retort when a voice broke the tension "Alright settle down you two we were just about to begin"

This came from Fujimura Taiga who saw the fighting between the two and wanted to break it up as soon as possible, not wanting to get in trouble Shinji decided it wasn't worth the trouble and lined up with the other 1st years in front of the 2nd and 3rd year students who introduced themselves and led them towards the changing rooms.

After changing into spare Archery uniforms the 3rd years went over the basics of Kyudo (Japanese Archery) while explaining the physical and spiritual aspects of the art, then the 1st years were told to line up and wait their turn before using the Archery range, when it was Shirou's turn he walked up to the podium and went through the 8 steps of Kyudo

_Ashibumi_, placing the footing on the wooden floor.

_Dozukuri_, forming the correct shooting stance.

_Yugamae_, readying the bow.

_Uchiokoshi_, raising the bow.

_Hikiwake_, drawing apart the arrow.

_Kai_, drawing the arrow across the bow to the fullest extent.

_Hanare_, releasing the arrow until it hit the bull's eye of the target.

_Zanshin,_ Shirou remained in that state after firing the arrow until he grabbed another arrow from the pile next to him.

With another arrow in his hand he went over the Kyudo steps again getting another bulls eye, he had repeated the process until the black dot in the centre of the target paper was littered with arrows, he noticed that the bucket next to him that had the arrows was empty and asked one of the 3rd years "Sempai I've used up all my arrows, do I have to get more or is that all for today" the older student he addressed was to busy staring at him in shock much like the rest of the students in the club, before he coughed and said "No that's fine today Emiya-san go rest with the other ones who already tried" deciding to do what the 3rd year said Shirou walked over to a bench were some of the 1st years who already had a go were sitting.

It was pretty obvious that Shirou was a natural when it came to archery as he never missed the bulls eye once, this was because the philosophy of kyudo required you to empty out all unneeded thoughts and feelings and become one with the arrow, because the Emiya didn't have a sense of self to begin with it was easy to get that aspect down, plus the spiritual aspects of the art reminded him a bit of mage-craft so those two facts meant that the red-head was unnaturally good at Archery even though it was his first try.

As he found a free space on the bench in order to sit down he was found himself being addressed by a brown haired girl he recognized as one of the 1st years who showed promise in Archery "I got to say that that was some really impressive Archery there mr?"

"It's Emiya, Emiya Shirou, and you are?" he said back to the girl next to him who looked embarrassed " Oh sorry about that my name's Mitsuduri Ayako of class A, I just wanted to know how you managed to get a bulls-eye every time I mean I only managed to hit the target 3 out of 5 times"

"Oh its nothing amazing or anything, its just a feeling I had that's hard to put in words at the moment but I can tell you if I find the right words" Shirou said to the nosy girl before she went into deep thought before deciding to decline "No thanks, if its as difficult as you say then there's a possibility I won't understand it anyway, besides I happen to take pride in my skills so learning your tricks wouldn't be fair"

After the rest of the 1st years had their go the sempai's said that they had a really good batch this year and that everyone did really well but there were 3 that stood out from the rest.

The most talented was obviously Shirou as he had did the bullseye every single time, the second best was Ayako due to her hitting the target most of the time, the final one was Shinji Matou but didn't take it well due to being outshined by Shirou and Ayako. After that was over they dismissed the 1st years while they stayed to clean up as it was their first day and they handed each of them flyers containing club practice times.

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After school was finished Shirou decided to keep his end of the agreement between him and Tohsaka by coming round Rin's house in the western residential area, he then started helping the heir of Tohsaka out with a few experiments that she wanted to try out, such as practicing her jewel-craft and mastering the spells locked in her crest.

When Shirou asked Rin about what jewel-craft does she explained the concept to him with her left arm around her waist and her right hand pointing upwards, this would later be known as the 'Tohsaka Rin lecture pose' she explained that Jewelcraft involved the flow and conversion of power in order to transfer prana from her circuits into the Jewels that she had been saving up, they would then be used for later uses such as powering strong spells, refilling her reserves, or using them as disposable magical grenades that explode with different kinds of force based on how much Prana was put into them.

She then went on about how different gems have different affects when prana is fed into them but their was something that bothered Shirou, he had heard about the concept of what was from his Dad but that was it and he also learned from him that the art was usually practiced by families with very large sources of income due to how expensive gems were.

He had explained as much to the black haired teen who forced to admit that because of her guardians incompetence in managing her families land, the only lands to her name was around the mansion they were in so she had to be careful when using magic gems as they were very expensive to replace, this had got Shirou thinking as he thought back to one of his earlier Reinforcement experiments, he had been reading about molecules in science class one day and found out when listening to the teachers lectures that gems were created when the volcanic and seismic activity in the earth would cause stones and rocks underground to have their molecules altered into different gems and metals over hundreds of years.

So with that idea in his head Shirou decided to try it out and went home after school finished and when he finished his part-time job, he then collected a few stones and rocks from the garden and took them to his workshop in order to try it out, he then picked up a steel knife and put it on a table where he found out the molecular structure of steel by using structural analysis, with that new info in hand he grabbed a stone from a pile he grabbed from the garden and started to use reinforcement to alter its molecular structure to match the molecules that were found in the steel knife, the end result was a shining grey lump of metal that appeared in front of him, he then grabbed it and analyzed it in order to decide if he succeeded or not, based on what he found it seemed that the rock was a lump of steel with a 75% purity which was not bad considering it was his first try, he then began experimenting on other metals like iron, copper, and zink, he didn't try gold or silver as it was a bit harder to create but after a few weeks or experimenting he succeeded, of course he made sure to store his results in a safe place as a emergency supply of funds as gold's value never changes no mater how much Japans economy changes.

When Shirou noticed Rin's shortage of gems due to her financial situation, he decided to surprise her rather then tell her outright so he could see the look on her face, his first step was to ask Rin for one of her rubies so that he could analyse it, of course the miser was reluctant to let one of her gems in another persons hand but after some careful persuasion from Shirou that he wanted to show her something she relented.

He then proceeded to analyze the ruby's molecular structure and after memorizing it in his head handed the jewel back to Rin, he then asked the magus to wait a bit while he went outside to grab some rocks from the Tohsaka family garden, when he came back he laid the pile on one of her tables and took one rock in his hand and decided to begin by using Reinforcement to alter the rock's molecular structure in order to match the ruby that the black haired magus gave him.

Needless to say the look on Rin's face when she saw a blood red ruby appear in Shirou's hand was priceless.

"How did you do that?" she said in awe as Shirou then proceeded to explain his theory on molecular manipulation in order to transform one rocks into different metals using reinforcement and thought that it would work the same with turning ordinary rocks into gems, normally Shirou was reluctant to share the results of his research with another magus, but decided it was worth it to see Rin walk up to the table and bang her head on the wooden surface calling herself stupid each time for being a supposed genius and not even thinking to use reinforcement to solve her Jewel shortage.

After calming down at almost giving herself a concussion, Tohsaka-san wanted to see if he could do it again and grabbed more of her families gems so that Emiya-kun could create more, after receiving more samples of Shirou's work which consisted of Rubies, Sapphires, Emeralds, topaz, Garnets and other types of gems the Emiya decided to make Rin a deal.

Shirou had offered to supply Rin with created jewels as well as 50% of the profits should she happen to sell any of them, in exchange of helping Shirou iron out the kinks of his molecular alteration, complete access to the Tohsaka library, as well as teach him jewel craft and any thaumaturgy styles that interest him.

After hearing Shirou's offer Rin weighed the pros and cons of this deal, on one hand this offer would help solve her jewel shortage and allow her to use her jewelcraft to its fullest extent. Plus if she played her cards right she could even buy back her families land and return her family's financial situation to normal with her share of the profits.

On the other-hand she would be letting an outsider read the accumulated knowledge that her family spent generations acquiring but she doubted Shirou was the type to abuse that knowledge or understand what half of books in her library contain anyway, it was a win/win situation for her either way.

With that in mind she came to a decision "Alright Emiya-kun you have a deal, but before we shake on it I need to see what kind of workshop you have if I'm going to teach you anything about thaumaturgy." This had pleased the Emiya as he was one step closer towards his dream, normally Shirou wasn't that interested in monetary issues but thought about how old his kitchen was and how limited it was for him to fully test out the extents of his cultinary abilities, with this deal he would be one step closer to finally having enough funds to fully renovate his kitchen into one rivaling a 5 star restaurant, after-all cooking was something he felt joy in doing aside from helping people out.

Which leads us back to the present day as Shirou brought Rin over to his house to show her to his shed where he practices his mage-craft, needless to say she wasn't impressed and was torn between laughing her ass off and using some explosive jems to destroy for being an insult to magical workshops everywhere.

"Is their something wrong Tohsaka?" Shirou innocently asked as the named magus glared at him "You're damn right something's wrong Emiya, where the hell are your magical tomes, your work station, the thaumaturgal catalysts, the results of your research"

At this set of questions Shirou was in deep thought before answering "well for the tomes I don't have any, Dad never owned any and he always taught me using practical methods, my work station is that wooden table over in the corner, I don't use any catalyst in my mage-craft so you won't find any here, and as for my research well their over on the floor but I'm not sure which things I reinforce and which I didn't, did that answer your question"

Rin was flabbergasted at the condition of the place where a magus like him is supposed to practice his art before sighing and rubbing her forehead "I give up, I guess I have my work cut out for me if I'm going to get this scrap yard of a workshop" Shirou was about to protest that his workshop was alright as it is but was stopped before he could "And don't you dare try to say this is alright, I'm honestly surprised you managed to get anything done in this scrapheap, in fact the first thing I'm going to do as part of our deal is turn this place into a proper workshop, trust me you'll thank me for it"

After that was taken care off Rin decided to examine Shirou's workshop in order to sort out which goes where when she almost tripped over something, she looked down to see a frying pan that was discarded on the floor, normally she would had dismissed it when she noticed something so odd that she was sure that she was seeing things, deciding to pick it up she took to take a closer look and froze at what she saw.

The metal pan was slightly transparent, as if it was made of glass, deciding that she needed more information performed structural analysis and almost dropped it in shock.

What she was holding was an object created using projection, an incomplete mystic art that uses prana to create a copy of another object, while it sounds convenient there are a few drawbacks that make it useless to modern magi, first the copies only last a few minutes and even then they are extremely fragile, second is that it not very efficient prana wise as it would be better to reinforce an existing object that has a power of 20, rather then project something that only has a power of 10.

However the thing that she was holding was not only stronger and more stable then projected objects that she was familiar with but that the pan she was holding was created** Six months ago**, deciding that she needed answers she turned towards the only person she knew who could have made this.

"Emiya-kun, can I talk to you for a minute?" Rin said seriously which got the boys attention as he walked towards her "Sure Tohsaka-san whats up?' he asked before she held the projected frying pan up so that the boy could have a closer look.

"Shirou, take a look at this and tell me truthfully, did you project this?" the hair of Tohsaka asked with determination in her eyes as Shirou was confused about why she was so serious but decided he might as well see what she was talking about "Isn't this just an old frying pan Tohsaka?" as soon as he said that he noticed something odd about the pan as it looked like it was transparent.

It was then that his brain decided to kick into high gear as he recognized what Rin was holding, it was when he was practicing his projection magic and had took a few supplies from the kitchen in order to practice with, he had picked a few up and started to go over the necessary steps in order make them, when it was complete he had near identical copies of the pots and pans he took from his cooking area but found that they were incomplete as they felt empty and hollow, he then decided to leave the copies in the shed as they would just dissolve in a few hours.

But what Rin was holding shouldn't even exist anymore as he had projected it over 6 months ago "Tohsaka, where did you find this?" he asked which earned him a reply "I found it over on the floor there when I accidently stepped on it, mind explaining to me what this as you clearly recognize it?"

Figuring he might as well tell her, as he was just as clueless as she was Shirou explained to her about his experiment with projection a few months back and how he gathered a few pots and pans from the kitchen, he then explained the seven steps he devised which include:

Judging the concept of creation

Hypothesizing the basic structure

Duplicating the composition material

Imitating the skill of its making

Sympathizing with the experience of its growth

Reproducing the accumulated years

Excelling every manufacturing process

After finishing explaining his method to her Rin looked like she was torn between throttling him for doing mage-craft wrong, or congratulating him for accidentally creating an entirely new branch of projection magic, but decided to think about that later as she needed to clear a few things with the red head.

"I am afraid that you're mistaken about how projecting works Emiya-kun, I know how it works and what you did here is definably **not** projection" this had confused the red head even more before Rin decided that she might as well explain it to him by adopting the 'lecture pose'

"Okay, first thing you need to know Emiya-kun is that the proper name for projection is **Gradation Air**, it is an incomplete art that shapes prana into a particular shape or form, its considered a useless art by most magi as the projected creations were very fragile and only lasted for a few minutes, the reason for this is because they are illusions of a real object so they end up being crushed by the world spirit **GAIA"**

"Take this for an example, if prana has the consistency of toffee, then projection mage-craft shapes that toffee into the shape desired by the sculpture, but no matter how sturdy the artist tries to make his creation it would eventually break apart as its still made of toffee, its because of this that magi only uses gradation air for creating disposable objects which are then used for complex rituals"

"But what you did is completely different as not only are the creations more complex allowing them to last around longer then normal projections, but they're almost identical to the real thing if you don't know where to look, meaning that your method has the potential to create an entirely new branch of mage-craft that has lots of potential in the field of thaumaturgy" she paused to let this sink into Shirou before thinking to herself, after all there was more to what Shirou did as he didn't even use any pre-existing materials to enhance the stability of his projection.

Magic is based on the principle of equivalent exchange and this holds true for gradation air as what you are basically doing is using pre-existing materials in your art, but what Shirou did was completely different as the materials used in the objects construction didn't exist anywhere else prior to his summons, what this meant to the black haired teen was unknown but she intended to find out.

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After discovering Emiya-kun's unique talent for projection magic, which he decided to call Tracing named after his activation aria 'Trace on' the two magi got to work on testing the limitations of this accidental boon. After much experimentation Shirou discovered that he an easier job tracing bladed objects like knifes but could still do other objects with high chances of success, they also found that tracing only costs 10 units of prana no mater how big or complex the object as long as it had a blade.

Deciding to test out this theory the two of them decided to go to a museum in order for Shirou to have a good look at some of the weapons displayed there and try to see if some weapons were harder to trace then others (Shirou managed to convince Fuji-nee that he was going there for a history project, and he was interested in learning the history of his country).

The result was a beneficial boon as they found out two aspects about Shirou's new power, first was that the boy had a sort of selective photographic memory when it came to memorizing the information he gained from analyzing the different spears, glaives, halberds, maces, katanas, zeihandars, longswords, Chinese dao, and so on. The other fact they learned was not discovered until they came back from their trip, they had decided to use the Emiya estate yard to try out the latest editions they got to the museum by first projecting a katana that belonged to a samurai who served Hideyoshi Toyotomi during the Sengoku period of Japan but the results were more then they expected.

Shirou could not only project the weapons composition and the way it was forged, but could also trace its history as well and this enabled him to synchronize with the skills of its previous owner.

This ability combined with his selective photographic memory meant that if Shirou mastered Tracing he could one day become a very dangerous magus to fight, and that's not without even mentioning his ability to project hundreds of copies on the spot thanks to his insane amount of nerve circuits which rival powerful magus families with hairs possessing around 100 high quality circuits.

Though considering that Shirou was currently a 3rd rate, 1st generation magus with no magic crest, no sorcery trait or any research that was passed down to him from his family, and yet had accidentally managed to achieve two amazing feats that generations of magi would probably spend years to obtain was impressive in its own right. Plus his nerve circuits would only increase with time if his nightly routine to create a new one everyday were anything to go by.

After Shirou had gotten a full scope of his abilities and what they meant both to himself and to the magical community should he be found out, he made the decision to never join the Magus association or risk getting a sealing designation after Rin explained the concept to him.

Sealing Designations were 'achievements of the highest honor' handed out by the Mages Association to magi who managed to produce something through their research that was either forbidden by the Association or unique to the magus that could not be achieved by others through study, because of this the magus is deemed 'precious' by the clock tower and incarcerated and turned into a 'specimen' in order to preserve their flesh and blood.

In other words any magus who receives a sealing designation would be either sentenced to an lifetime of imprisonment in the clock-tower, or death so that their flesh would help advance the field of thaumaturgy leaving the sealed magus no choice but to become either a Philosopher who continues his/her research by any-means necessary, or a hermit who spends his time in isolation.

Fortunately Sealing Designations are only given out to members of the Association so he is safe as long as he doesn't join the organization, at worst he would probably be put under surveillance in order to study his abilities. After all having enforcers show up on his doorstep to try and capture him due to him being sealed would be hazardous to his grades.

Rin had put her hand over her face when he said this but she had gotten used to stuff like this by now.

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The rest of the month went smoothly as Shirou was busy with School work, club practices, his part-time job at Copenhagen, and Rin trying to teach him mage-craft while he helped supply her with the necessary gems for her jewel-craft while she told him the correct composition that was needed for them to be used for jewelcraft.

"_This isn't big enough!" "You call this a gem good enough to use magic on? Are you TRYING to kill me?" "I told you that I wanted an Emerald not a Topaz!" "Rubies ARE Sapphires you idiot!" "Do this over again! The cut is wrong! It will completely ruin the market value I mean the magical conductivity!" "Shirou! I need twelve pink diamonds by Thursday! Seven carrots each and not a milligram less!"_

Needless to say thanks to Tohsaka Rin's instructions and guidance (read over-enthusiasm and greed) the boy got **Very **informative about the art of jewel-craft due to creating high-quality jewels and crystals, the training sessions he had also proved to him that the black haired teen was one of the scariest women he had ever met when she was passionate about something, and don't get him started on the evil laughter she makes from time to time.

On the days when Rin taught him magecraft she came to the unmistakable conclusion that Shirou Emiya possessed absolutely **Zero** talent for orthodox magecraft outside Projection and reinforcement, at first Rin was frustrated by this until she decided to try and find out Shirou's element in order to shed some light as to why he seemed to have trouble with normal thaumaturgy, what they found came as a surprise to the two as it turned ou the Emiya boys element was '**Sword' **something that was obviously not of the standard 5 known by the association, when Shirou asked what Rin's element was she replied that it was '**Average one' **giving her an affinity for every element known to man.

Not one to give up despite a set back the black haired magus scoured her library for a style of mage-craft that Shirou would be able to use of passable ability after-all no associate of her was going to remain a third-rate magus forever on her watch is she had anything to say about it, it was after searching through countless tomes that she came across a old book that was located WAY back in her families library that looked that it was a couple hundred years old, there was also a spell of preservation on it that prevented it from falling apart

It was an unorthodox style that originated from ancient Scandinavia during the age of the gods and had was also used in ancient Ireland by the famous hero Cu Chulainn, it required the caster to inscribe letters called Runes into particular, surfaces objects and even the air in order to enact particular mysteries based on the arrangement of the Runes inscribed.

Rune-craft comes in 4 different types, which consist of **single-action Runes** that only use one letter to enable a desired effect, **Runic-chains** that use multiple runes to enact mysteries on par with 3-5 count arias, **Rune Words **that use multiple runes to form words that create specific effects, and finally **Runic names **that use the runic alphabet to spell out the names of famous people, places or objects in order to perform magic or rituals associated with them.

Due to various reasons the art wasn't very popular in the Clocktower even though many notable magi use it, but for someone like Shirou who lacks talent in normal mage-craft it was perfect.

With that in mind She grabbed the book from the study in order to translate the foreign text into Japanese so that the two of them could read it, when Shirou found out what she was doing he offered to help out so the black haired teen shoved a Scandinavian dictionary in his hands and told him to start translating. By week 1 they had managed to convert more then a 5th of the book into Japanese that to Rin's immense surprise contained the entire extended Runic Alphebet, including the original 18 runes of Odin. When the black haired magus discovered this she was ecstatic that she had something that entire families would pay millions in currency to obtain, but curious as to why such a valuable tome was doing in the library of a family of magi that didn't even use Rune-craft in the first place.

Deciding that she might as well get some answers she searched though her families records written by past heads of the Tohsaka family and came across an entry from her great great grandmother Ren Tousaka, the daughter of one of the founders of the holy grail war Nagato Tohsaka.

Her Ancestor in particular wrote the entry during her participation in the Second Holy Grail war as the master of Lancer who was known in life as Gozen Tomoe, a female Samurai who lived during feudal era Japan, she had participated in the war when she was in her mid 70's though she still looked like she was still 40 thanks to her mage-craft enhancing her longevity.

The written account of her participation in the bloody conflict detailed her battle with other masters and their summoned servants but there was one in particular who stood out. The enemy in particular was a powerful foreign magus from Scandinavia who specialized in Rune-craft and had summoned a Rider who was a General from the Roman Empire, it was according to her ancestor one of the hardest battles she had ever faced as the magus used Rune-craft in a way that rivaled high-thaumaturgy but thanks to her use of Jewelcraft and Chinese kenpo she managed to hold her own, the battle lasted for a while until the two of them were nearly at their limits so the Scandinavian magus decided to end it by performing an A+ Runecraft spell called **Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr: Heavenly chariot of the Thundergod. **This was an extremely powerful spell eclipsing all but the most powerful of Noble phantasms that uses 25 Runes in order to summon the personal chariot of the Norse thunder god Thor pulled by his two goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr but could only be used if certain conditions are met.

After Reading this Rin paled at the thought of someone like that performing such a spell against her, it seemed that her ancestor shared her view as she rushed to kill the magus before he could complete the spell and allow his servant to use the chariot thanks to his **Riding **skill, fortunately thanks to the combined efforts of Ren Tohsaka, her servant Lancer, and the creative use of a command spell the two were able to kill the magus before he could complete the Runic-array leaving Rider to vanish at having his master vanquished and loosing his connection to the physical plane.

After searching the Scandinavian magus corpse for his ID and the location of his address and by proxy his workshop they raided the dead man's place of research until they came across the tome containing a handwritten book on Runecraft and a series of notes about the magus life, what they found was surprising to say the least.

It was discovered that the magi in question was the second born son of a family of magi spanning 3 generations that didn't possess a sorcery trait, in addition due to being the second born he wasn't given the family crest and had practically raised himself due to his parents spending time with his older brother more then him.

Wanting to prove himself to his family he had decided to perform an extremely dangerous Runic ritual in an isolated location when he was in his early twenties, the ritual in question was called **Odin's Gallows** a three-part ritual recreating the event of the norse gog Odin impaling himself on the world tree Yggdrasill with his Spear Gungnir given to him as a gift and sacrificing his right eye in order to aquire knowledge about the nine realms of the world tree.

This spell Requires three specific things in order for it to work, these consist of an Ash Tree from his homeland and standing in an area with high concentrations of mana like of a leyline (he managed this by buying Ash tree seeds and planting them in his houses back yard while using magecraft to accelerate its growth), a spear given to him by a friend or family member (he managed this by asking his brother for a spear for his birthday saying that he was fascinated with weaponry and wanted it mounted in his room) finally he needed to inscribe runes around his left eye and positioned so that the wound from the rune would seep into his eye rendering it blind.

The next step involved impaling himself with the spear and painting runic arrays on the spear and Ash tree (making sure that the location of the tree arrays are between two branches to act as gallows) tying a rope to the spear and finally hanging himself from the Ash tree for 9 days and nights in a state between life and death (he made sure that his family couldn't interfere in the ritual by saving up in order to send his parents on a 2 week vacation, and convincing his Brother to stay away from the ritual area so he could concentrate on his research)

Normally such a dangerous ritual would have killed an ordinary magus but thanks to a combination of luck and determination he had managed to survive transforming his elemental affinity to divine letters, his origin into Runes and gaining a sorcery trait called Rune god.

After being nursed back to health by his family he proceeded to use his new talents to master modern runes and became a magus that rivaled magi from powerful families with history going back hundreds of years, the handwritten journal located in his workshop was the culmination of his life's research in recreating Runic spells lost to the modern era.

Ren Tohsaka was so touched by the sheer risks the magus decided to take rather then rely on his families magecraft decided to bury his body in the foreigners graveyard rather then defile it in order to discover its mysteries while keeping the book so that she could guard it and keep anyone from abusing the knowledge it contained (due to not possessing a talent for rune craft she couldn't use the knowledge in the book anyway)

When she finished reading the last recorded moments of her ancestor's participation in the second heavens feel Rin had mixed thoughts about what to do next, it was obvious that the knowledge located in the Runecraft book contained powerful magecraft that would provide her with a very beneficial boon if she learned the Scandinavian art but that would mean sacrificing time she would normally use to master her families crest and other aspects of jewel craft.

Of course she decided to learn the rune-based style after the thought of her summoning a thunder gods chariot pulled by Devine beasts emitting lightning was too good to pass up, plus there was the fact that her grandfather was from Scandinavia fulfilling one of the conditions to use the spell.

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After cramming another translation during their spare time the two magi managed to finally decipher Single Rune spells listed in the book as well as runic chains that use more then one Rune, there were simple spells like **Eagle eyes **that uses the Kenaz rune to enhance ones eyesight, to complex bounded field arrays like a housekeeping array that has to be placed over a leyline and the letters Mannaz, Ansuz, Dagaz, and Sowlio inscribed in order to produce a very hot flame that burns all matter of vermin and dust in the residence that the runes are inscribed in, destroying them at such a temperature that not even ash would remain. Rin decided then and there that learning this spell was one of the first things she would do as it would free up time to concentrate on her work which would normally be used cleaning the house as she lives alone in a big western style mansion.

There were also elemental spells for each element that would really be handy for her to learn due to her status as an **average one** but there were others that had various affects like memory alteration, and manipulating the human body in various way, often strange and hilarious like one spell that was used by female rune masters to change their cheating boyfriends/husbands into women, seeing as these types of spells were a little too advanced for the mages at the moment they decided to concentrate on learning single-action spells first.

By the time the end of May was over Rin had already mastered basic runes and had moved on to rune chains, preferably the ones focusing on elemental mastery due to her status as an average one, Shirou followed behind as he had successfully memorized the entire runic Alphabet off by heart (he achieved this by successfully reinforcing his brain, a very dangerous stunt to pull that earned him a whack on the head by Rin) but had trouble using arrays that focused on manipulating elements which was understandable due to his element being very specialized.

Though in a strange twist of fate Shirou was oddly skilled in using runes that focus on the healing arts, his favorite by far was the** Rune of Resurrection**, a powerful array on par with noble phantasms that uses the runes Sowilo, Kenaz Uruz, Tiwaz and Algiz placed either on the users body or clothes to heal the user to perfect health after suffering a mortal wound, in other words with this array Shirou doesn't **Die when he is killed**.

Naturally a rune this powerful has conditions for its use, the first is to act to succeed in the fulfillment of a duty given to him and must sacrifice themselves in the pursuit they were given, the second is obviously a large amount of prana inserted into the runes in order to use, the reason Shirou can use the rune is because promised his dying father that he would become a hero of justice that saves everyone and that he would gladly give his life in the pursuit of that dream if needed, naturally Shirou has yet to test it as no one he knows would ever give him a mortal wound in order to test out the rune.

His other favorite is the reinforcement array **Self Improvement; **a type of mage-craft used in training that creates physical and spiritual weights anchored to the person using the runes and improves the users magical abilities as well by clearing the mind of distractions and reinforcing his creativity and inspiration these facts make the array suited to both physical and magical training.

When he had read about this spell the heir of Emiya immediately spent much time in learning the spell so that he could use it for his daily training regimen when he wasn't practicing magecraft with Tohsaka such as his morning exersices, practicing archery, working various part time jobs, training with Fuji-nee in kendo, and finally creating another nerve circuit before going to bed.

Once he inscribed the array into his own body and turned them on he used them every day for one week in order to test out the affects, needless to say he wasn't disappointed, with that confirmed he used the runes everyday after he got up and before he went to bed in order to improve himself both physically and mentally, plus as a nice side effect his high-school grades improved, of course he made sure to turn the runes of for one day so that he could get used to feeling what his normal strength felt like and to rest his muscles from the strain they over went.

When he had told Rin about the spell she was reluctant at best but after seeing the results of his training in using the runes for two weeks decided to try them out, if only to use the mental enhancing aspect of the runes to improve her studies.

With that out the way Shirou continued with his mage craft training so that he was one step closer to achieving his dream of being a hero of justice and making his deceased father proud.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"It seems that you've been improving your studies Rin, you actually managed to last longer during our spars" a man with priestly garbs in his late 30's said to the black haired Tohsaka who was breathing heavily after finishing her sparring session with her teacher and legal guardian Kotomine Kirei, "Can it you face priest, did you really have to hit me so hard I felt like my ribs were breaking" the said face priest merely smiled as he was enjoying his students clear annoyance "I wanted to make sure that you had a proper tolerance for pain as mage-craft is about walking with death , besides with your improved endurance and strength I had to try a bit harder to match your new abilities" .

Kirei was a member of the holy church and part of a secret sect of the Catholic Church known as the executioners, a group of religious zealots charged with hunting down creatures and rogue magi that threaten the safety of humanity and are violations of the teachings of god.

Normally a member of the catholic church would never be caught teaching a magus the ways of thaumaturgy or even have circuits to begin with, however he was blessed with circuits when he was born thanks to his late father's service to the church.

Plus was the fact that his father Risei Kotomine and Rin's father Tokiomi were friends and this friendship led to the man of god learning the ways of magecraft 13 years ago after Kirei's wife Claudia died, of course the real reason for his apprenticeship under Tokiomi was because he was chosen by the holy grail as a master in the 4th heavens feel and had participate under his fathers orders to aid the Tousaka's in obtaining the grail.

For that reason he started learning the mystic arts from the father of Rin in order to prepare him for the conflict and he proved that he was surprisingly talented in the field especially healing but for some reason always quit before achieving mastery in a specific field and merely moved on to the next one.

When the 4th war finally came he had summoned one of the Hassan of the Assassin class, more specifically the hundred faces Hassan who could split into a hundred copies of him in order for them to serve as a spy system for the Tousaka team to spy on the other masters, however this came to an end when he ordered Assassin to attack a meeting where Saber Archer and Rider were having a sort of feast but with only wine and no food, needless to say the servant was wiped out by Riders Ex ranked noble phantasm **Ionioi Hetairoi: Army of the King **that summoned Riders entire army from during his time as Alexander the Great.

Not far after that Tokiomi died in the conflict with his wife Aoi being admitted to a mental hospital where she died not long after, leaving the priest to look after Rin as both her teacher and legal guardian managing her estates until she was old enough to inherit them, though it was too bad he didn't do a good job managing them as the fell into the hands of outsiders soon after, he was a good teacher though.

"Still I am curious as to your sudden increase in ability in such a short amount of time, mind shedding some light on this my dear student" Kirei asked Rin who merely shrugged and replied "Oh its nothing miraculous I just came across an old tome in my families library that contained knowledge on Rune-craft, I decided to read it in my spare time and found some useful runes that enhanced my abilities, including one that serves as magical training weights"

Now this had surprised the executor, as he was unaware that the Tousaka residence had any books on rune-craft, heck he didn't think that even Tokiomi had any-books on that subject considering that his father was from Scandinavia to begin with, still he didn't expect Rin to actually learn an entirely new mage craft style then rely on her families jewelcraft guess 'accidentally' loosing the Tohsaka estates paid off afterall of her improvement was anything to go by.

"I see, well then I can honestly say that you've improved Rin but don't let your success go to your head just yet, you've still got a long way to go before you can match other magi in combat" this had surprised Rin as she didn't think there was much that would faze her as she not only has a steady supply of gems to use jewelcraft on thanks to Shirou, but she also had powerful Rune craft under her belt, making her a little bit confident in her abilities, afterall magi were researchers to begin with and not entirely suited to close combat, Kirei didn't count as he was an Executioner to begin with "yeah right, name 2 magi that would be able to match me in my current state and then I'll believe you"

"Oh I can think of a couple of magi that fits you're criteria, the first magi is someone I know from the apostle hunting missions I go on called Bazett Fraga Mcremitz"

"Bazett who?" Rin asked with a metaphysical question mark hovering above her head before Kirei continued "A first class Sealing designate Enforcer from Ireland that joined the magus association when she was in her teens and specializes in hunting down rogue magi and dead apostles, as far as combatants go she is what you call a 'magus killer'"

"As good as you think you are as far as Rune-craft goes, I am afraid that hers is superior as she inherited her knowledge of the Scandinavian art from her Family the Fraga's who have practicing the art for centuries, combine with the fact that she is older, stronger and more experience then you means that probably won't last very long if you happen to face her in combat"

This had cooled Rins ego down as Kirei informed her about the Irish magus based on his expert knowledge as an executor, so if he said that she wouldn't stand a chance in hell against someone and provided reasonable explanations as to why she would believe him, however there was something he said that she was curious about "hold on a seconds Kirei you said that there were two magi that would be able to defeat me easily, who's the other one"

At his charges question the 30 something year old smiled as if remembering a fond memory and replied "Emiya Kiritsugu"

As soon as Rin heard the name, especially Emiya she was hit was a sudden realization and thought "Emiya…Kiritsugu? Wasn't that the name of Shirou's father, no it couldn't be…. could it?" before asking her guardian for more info "em Kirei no offence but who is that?"

"I'm not surprised you haven't heard of him as his exploits were before you were born. The man known as Emiya Kiritsugu was a notorious freelancer known as the 'magus killer' that had managed to successfully kill every target he ever comes across and was often employed by the association to do its dirty work"

"Cold, efficient, ruthless, the man was the perfect killer who managed to successfully take out his target no matter the odds or methods used, however there was a side that many people didn't know about" he then adopted a cynical smile as he continued "it seemed that Emiya Kiritsugu wanted to save the world"

at first the black haired magus had doubts if the man Kirei was talking about was the same person that adopted Shirou, however the priests comment about the magus killer wanting to save the world sounded suspiciously like what Shirou told him about his father.

"_A hero of justice? Are you serious Emiya-kun" Rin replied as Shirou decided to tell the heir of Tohsaka about his father on day after the black haired magus asked to know more about the person who trained him._

"_Yeah that's right Rin the old man told me himself just before he died, he said that he wanted to be a hero who saved everyone when he was young but when I asked him why he quit he looked at me and said that he was unable to become one as when you save one like you would be unable to save another"_

_Shirou then looked at Rin seriously and continued "It was then that I made the promise to my dad that I would become a superhero and do what he was unable to do when he was alive which is why I was training for the past 2 ½ years since he died to become one in the first place, after all even heroes of justice have to start somewhere"_

At first Rin was flabbergasted at the thought of a grown man having a childish dream like that and passing it on to their son, but after hearing Kirei explain the rest of Kiritsugu's motivation for what he did it all clicked together.

" Based on the testimonies of various eye witnesses that saw the magus killer act on every job he performed for the clock tower I came to this single conclusion, in every conflict Kiritsugu Emiya took part in he always managed to kill the target while making sure that the least amount of casualties were lost in the process, like he was weighing all lives equally no matter age, race or gender and tipped the scales so that the least amount of lives were lost, plus was the fact that he wasn't a normal magus either due to his use of modern weaponry"

He then closed his eyes and said "A foolish method for a foolish man, though despite his faults he was still a force to be reckoned with, so much in fact that I doubt even your father would have stood a chance against him if they were still alive" Rin was slightly outraged that Kirei's dismissal of her late fathers skill as a magus but she can ignore that for now as she had other things to worry about. "Kirei, could I ask you a question?'

This had raised the priest's eyebrows in slight surprise but decided to answer his stuent anyway "why yes Rin, what is it you want to know?" deciding that she might as well ask him Rin said, "Did the magus killer have any children?"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was Friday night at the Emiya house hold and Shirou was sitting down with his guardian Fujimura Taiga who came round to mooch 'again' and was currently stuffing her face with Shirous excellent cooking before stopped eating and looked at her charge before saying "So Shirou, I heard some pretty suspicious rumors today about you at school today, you wouldn't happen to know anything about them would you?"

"A little, though to tell you the truth I don't really care about them as their obviously not true" Shirou replied back as he was munching on his food before Fuji-nee replied back "so you are not going out with miss Tohsaka even though you practically go round her house every-day?" the brown haired woman said looking at the red head with a suspicious look.

"For the thousandth time Fuji-nee we are not going out, I just help her out with some things from time to time since she lives alone, I swear there's nothing going on between us " he said repeating the same sentence he gave to every guy and girl at school who asked if he was going out with the most popular 1st year in school, he didn't mind at first but now it was getting really annoying, heck even Issei asked if I really had feelings for the devil as he calls her.

Ryuudou Issei was the son of the local Buddhist priest up at Ryuudou temple, they had met when Shirou often visited the temple to meditate on his spiritual centre and practice his breathing and walking exercises as part of his mage-craft training and they have been friends ever since.

The reason that Issei didn't like Tousaka was because they both served on the student council back in middle school but that that still didn't explain the open hostility he was giving the black haired girl, almost as if he could tell that her current personality was a mask and what she was really like underneath, but maybe he was thinking about it too much as it wasn't like Issei had any supernatural abilities or anything as that would be just stupid.

Still he was pretty surprised to hear the glasses wearing monk-in-training ask him if he was going out with Tohsaka as he didn't think Issei was the type to listen to rumors, of course he was relieved to hear that I had absolutely no feelings for Rin but left a friendly warning to be cautious around Tohsaka and left to perform his other duties.

"Alright I believe you Shirou, though to be honest I'm glad your spending time with someone your age instead of working or studying all the time" Taiga replied back as the go back to eating until it was time for her to go home, leaving Shirou to do the dishes and was about to go to the shed to practice his mage-craft until he heard the front door bell ring "wonder who that could be?' he thought as he walked to the front door and opened it, only to see Tousaka Rin standing there with a pained expression on her face.

"Tousaka-san? What are you doing here at this hour, do you need something?" the heir of Emiya said looking at the black haired teen waiting for her to reply before she took a deep breath.

"Shirou, we need to talk"

(30 minutes later)

It was half an hour later that Shirou sat on his cushion looking at Rin in silent shock at what he had just heard "Tohsaka, is this some sort of sick joke, what do you mean my father was some sort of 'magus killer' before he adopted me?"

This didn't surprise the teen who broke the news to Shirou as it would be hard to swallow for anyone "I'm not surprised you don't believe me Shirou but I swear on my family name that it's the truth, I heard about it from my legal guardian Kirei and he was an executor for the holy church so I can trust his sources"

With that the now christened 'son of the magus killer' slumped his shoulders in defeat and sighed heavily "you seem to be taking this rather well Emiya-kun, I would have thought you would be more upset, or shout angrily at me for ruining the image you have of your father"

"No its alright Tohsaka, I mean I hardly knew about what the old man did for a living before he adopted me so I had a feeling he did stuff that he obviously wasn't proud off if he didn't talk to me about it, but this…it's a lot to take in." Shirou said to Rin as she could understand the kind of feelings he was going through right now.

Besides she may have loved her previous teacher Tokiomi as both a role model and as a loving father, but the things he did while he was alive made Rin want to shot a gandr to his face, after-all what kind of father would willingly give up his youngest daughter to the Matous if he had at least **some** idea as to the kind of training she would go though under Matou Zouken's care.

It was the main reason why she didn't even talk to her sister Sakura not because of the agreement between her father and Zouken that the two would not even communicate with each-over (which she might add is considered void after Tokiomis death) but because she was to ashamed to face her after seemingly abandoning her and not acknowledging her existence despite being her sister.

It was then that her thoughts of her sister made her remember something else Kirei about the magus killer.

"_Illyasviel von Einzbern?" Rin repeated in her head as it was not the name that she had expected to hear._

"_Correct" Kirei said as he told the Tohsaka heir about the info he gathered using the churches information network "About 17 years ago Kiritsugu Emiya married into the Einzbern family a powerful magus family and one of the founders of the Holy Grail war by taking Irisviel von Einsbern as his wife, Illyasviel was born to the two of them not long after"_

_Rin processed the information in her head as to the significance of what it meant, the magus killer had married into one of the founding families of the heavens feel 9 years before the 4__th__ grail war, she would bet her entire stock of gems that there was some connection between the two as there was no way it was a coincidence._

"_I have a feeling that I know what you are thinking Tohsaka and I can confirm that you are right, it was no coincidence that Kiritsugu Emiya was accepted into the Einsbern's as they had hired him to represent them in the holy grail war 7 years ago." The priest said as Rin got her confirmation that she was right but that left one important question._

_How was she going to break this to Shirou?_

After going though the info that Kirei told her about the magus killer and his connection to the Einzbern family she decided to get it over with and break the news to the adopted son of Kiritsugu.

"Shirou, there's something else that you need to know about Kiritsugu" the heir of Emiya immediately paid attention as Rin only used his first name when she was serious about something, however what he heard next completely blew him away.

Rin then took a deep breath and said "Kiritsugu fathered a daughter when he was still alive called Illyasviel von Einzburn, in overwords she is your step-sister"

(To be continued) 

**Hello**__**viewers Epicgamer484 here, first of all I would like to say that I decided to get rid of the opening at the top and instead talk about the chapter after you all have read it and had a look, though to be honest I am flattered at the 15 reviews I got for my first chapter, as it was more then what I got for the first chapter of Fate/Keyblade**__**of wind but enough about that as I will now talk about the things I wrote about I this chapter.**

**The first things you would notice is Shirou noticing his tracing his tracing earlier in canon but don't expect him to start sprouting out noble phantasms as the grail war is not for another 2 years so he has plenty of time to iron out the kinks in his accidental miracle of thaumaturgy.**

**The second thing I put in is Shirou's ability to turn rocks and stones into gems, which I sort of 'borrowed' from Third Fang's excellent fan fiction From Fake Dreams which means that Rin now has a steady supply of gems to use but don't expect Shirou to be any good at it as he would mostly use Jewelcraft for storing the vast amounts of prana he makes for emergency's and other uses.**

**However the final piece is Rin and Shirou learning Runecraft, which is totally an original idea from me, the reason I had the black haired girl learn the Scandinavian art is due to a review I read about Rin being somewhat limited in her magical arsenal despite her being an average one, and runecraft has plenty of elemental spells so they would be useful for someone of Rin's skills, also I know that Shirou learns runecraft in Gabriel Blessing fic Inflight so I will get that out the way without someone reminding me in the review section.**

**Also the spells I listed in the fic were were all taken from a Rune craft index located on the forum website spacebattles, for more information you can see it for yourself by entering the address seen below into your web browser:**

_** threads/rune-magic-index.238835/#post-8905982 **_

**Well that's I have to say for now so please review and leave comments that would help me improve my fic, exept grammer as I don't have a beta but if anyone wants to be my Beta let me know as it would be really helpful of you.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate stay night or the characters featured in this fic as they are the property of Type-moon **


	3. Chapter 3

**Circuit Network chapter 3**

It was a quiet winter morning in the city of Fuyuki as many people who lived there were either getting out of bed in order to go to school/work, but some also decided to sleep in for a few minutes or were just not bothered to get up as they had other things on their mind at the moment.

One such person was our red headed protagonist as he laid there on the cold stone floor in his tool shed/workshop, which he might add had changed a lot over the past year since he met the twin tailed magus Tohsaka Rin.

The room was no longer a jumbled mess with bits and pieces scattered around the floor of the shed but was now both clean and free of dust and dirt as the junk previously on the floor were now located in metal draws located on the side of the tool shed by a large wooden table with several various metals and alloys on it, there was also another metal cabinet next to it that had several magical locks placed on the various draws that would only open with both a specific key and a jolt of prana inserted into the key upon insertion.

The second floor had also seen a few changes as before were various bits of junk that were stored up there such as boxes, electronic equipment and other things that Shirou had no interest for but never got the time to get rid of them, now it was occupied by rows of different books from science and chemistry, to even mythology and medical books, there was even a table near the window that had various runes on bits of paper plastered on the walls and various notes on the table detailing various runic combinations and their affects .

In other words thanks to the efforts of both Shirou and Rin they had transformed the Emiya estate tool shed into a proper workshop where Shirou can practice the various branches of thaumaturgy he had learned a year ago, when he had accidentally used **Prana Burst **in the Fuyuki middle school yard and causing his and Rin's fates to become intertwined.

As the heir of Emiya lay there he decided that he might as well get up so he could get ready for going to school as it was nearly 6:30 am in the morning, which was about the time that another of Shirou's frequent houseguests besides Fuji-nee and Tohsaka.

"Sempai? Are you in their Sempai? Its morning now so could you please open the door for me as Fujimura-sensei will be here soon"

Ah speak of the devil thought Shirou as he walked to the reinforced steel doors that covered the entrance of the tool-shed and projected the right key in order to open it.

This was one of the many security procedures installed in the Emiya head's workshop as it included the installation of special mechanisms on every lock in the building, the idea in question was devised by Rin as it involved the destruction of every key in the workshop that were paired with specific locks, then using projection in order to trace copies of the originals in order to open them, this way only Shirou could be able to unlock them as he possesses the ability to project almost perfect copies of the destroyed keys without having to cut new ones.

As he traced the right key and undid the chained up door he opened it to meet the familiar sight of a plumb haired girl his age dressed in the school uniform of Homurahara gakuen.

This girl was Sakura Matou, the younger sister of his former friend Shinji, a first year at the high school he goes to and a member of the Archery club where he serves at its captain with Mitsuduri Ayako as its vice captain.

"Sakura, what are you doing here? Don't tell me its 6:30 already, I haven't even finished putting away my work yet" the red head said to the plum haired girl who answered back

"I just wanted to make sure that you woke up on time Sempai as you do have a tendency to sleep in if you don't have something to wake you at a specific time, that and I'm worried you'll develop back pains from sleeping in the tool shed all the time" Sakura replied.

After hearing that Shirou scratched the back of his head in embarrassment at being reminded of the habit he tends to do when he stays up late working on his mage-craft, heck he tends to sleep in his workshop often more then his own bedroom, the reason he doesn't just move his futon in here already is because the futon sheets would get dirty.

"Right I'll try and sleep in my own bedroom more often from now on, actually Sakura could you set up breakfast for me as I still have some things to check in my shed and Fuji-nee will be here soon." The heir of Emiya said to his houseguest intending to sort some things out before getting ready for school.

"Of course Sempai, but please don't be too long" the Matou accepted before heading back to the house in order to get dinner ready, leaving Shirou to check that his workshop was in order before leaving.

After checking that everything was in order he grabbed the lock and chain discarded on the floor, locked the tool-shed from the outside using a traced key and dismissed the piece of astralised metal before heading to his room in order to change out of his work clothes and put on his school uniform.

With that done he headed to the kitchen in order to see if Sakura needed help, before seeing the familiar scene of Fujimura Taiga sitting by the table eating Matou-san's cooking.

"It was about time you decided to get up Shirou, making us wait for you to get ready, were you sleeping in the tool-shed again," Taiga said to the red head that proceeded to sit down, grab his chopsticks and dig in.

"Yeah sorry about that Fuji-nee, I was working on one of old man Raiga's bikes last night and before I knew it I had fell asleep after I finished" Shirou admitted to his legal guardian and sister figure.

Who then proceeded to sigh and say "Shirou I know Grandpa appreciates that which is why he pays you a bit more since you live alone, but would it at least kill you to sleep in your room for once, I mean It must be freezing in there, what would the other club member members think if their captain slept in a tool shed of all places"

This caused the Emiya to wonder what would they think if it got out that Archery club captain of Homurahara high school had a habit of tinkering with junk and sleeping in his tool shed.

How this came to be was unavoidable as after the third years graduated from the club last year they were in need of a new captain, and since he was the best archer in the club he was nominated right away by a majority vote much to his embarrassment, much to the annoyance and jealousy of his former friend Shinji at one again being one upped by someone who was from a no name family when he was the heir of Matou.

Of course the current vice captain who was a 2nd year student at the time shared the jealousy the blue head had at the time and wasn't about to let someone younger then her take what was rightfully hers.

So she decided to do the only thing that would be able to gain her the position she needed and challenged the red head to a shooting competition in front of the club where the winner would become captain.

Shirou being the good sport that he was about to decline when Ayako stopped him and answered in his place, plus was the fact that Fuji-nee sanctioned the duel as it would be a good way to knock the vice captain down a few pegs but never sais it out loud.

When the day of the challenge happened the archery range was filled with members of the club, Fujimura sensei to act as the judge, and the two combatants who stared at each over with the vice glaring at the youngster to psyche him out, with Emiya not even flinching as it would take a lot more then that to psyche him out.

As the teacher announced the start of the contest the two youngsters got ready and began, the aim of the duel was to see how many points either individual scored with the winner being the one who ranks up the most.

The bull's eye of the target offers the most points with the outer rings serving as secondary targets with the ones closer to the bull's eye offering the most points, plus as an extra rule any shots that land on the ground are deducted from the total of the combatants.

The two archers would continue until the both of them ran out of shots to use after which Taiga would tally up their points and declare a winner.

With that in mind the vice-captain readied her bow and shot her arrow into the target intending to hit the bulls eye, but unfortunately for her it landed on the outer ring giving her less points then if it was a bulls eye.

Shirou on the other hand had not even readied his bow as he was looking at it with intent like he was trying to think of the solution to a puzzle, with that in hand he finally readied his bow but an arrow and pulled the bowstring in a shooting gesture before frowning as if he had failed.

This had continued with the vice shooting the higher yielding point target while getting one or two bull's-eyes here or there until she had run out of arrows while Shirou hadn't fired a single one.

Thinking that he had given up the female 2nd year waited for him to admit defeat before he suddenly smiled and got into a shooting position, except it wasn't the normal kyudo steps as the Emiya had his bow aimed higher then normal.

He then let go of the arrow and the projectile soared through the sky at great velocity before it hit the target in a bulls eye, this process had repeated itself until Shirou ran out of arrows and walked to the stunned speechless vice telling her that they need to go to Fuji-nee and await her decision.

Of course the teacher was curious about her charges abnormal shooting pose and asked if she could have a look at his bow, what she found however caused her to frown as she discovered something abnormal about the red heads bow.

It seemed that Shirou's bow had been tampered with before the duel, or more specifically the bowstring tension was much lower then normal meaning that it wouldn't shoot very for if Shirou used the normal shooting pose which would have gotten him disqualified but since his bow was tampered with it was excusable.

What wasn't excusable to the now furious teacher now did the vice have to resort to such cowardly and dishonourable tactics in order to win as the brown haired woman remembered the vice was In the equipment storage room yesterday after club practice.

So after telling the pale 2nd year to come to her office afterschool to await her decision regarding this event Taiga announced the winner to be Emiya who had a perfect score, as well as chewing out the red head for not telling the teacher that his bow was tampered with in the first place.

The end result of the fiasco was Emiya Shirou being made captain in his 2nd year, with the cheating vice being kicked out of the club as well as receiving 2 days suspension, after that Ayako succeeded the role due to being the second best archer in the club and having good organisational skills much to Shinji's jealousy.

Of course this lead to Shirou and Ayako being compared to an old married couple because of their conflicting genders much to the pairs constant denial that that was the case.

"They'll probably just think I'm fixing some appliances since I had a secondary reputation as the homurahara fake janitor" this was true as Shirou would often help the student council with electronic repairs due to budget cuts (of course Fuji-nee makes sure it all counts as extra credit as she didn't feel it was right for Shirou to do stuff like that without some reward) apart from his duties as club captain.

Thank god he learned the **Eloquence **rune as it helped organise his club much easier as he wasn't that much experienced as a leader to begin with.

"Oh that reminds me, Sakura do you want to come have some breakfast now cause the foods going to get cold" Shirou said to the plum haired girl who decided to stop with what she was doing and go to the table.

"Its alright Sempai, I was just waiting for you to arrive so I decided to do a bit of the washing up in the meantime" the Matou said as she smiled at Shirou and proceeded to grab her chopsticks and dig in, ever since Sakura started coming round the house every morning the living room had suddenly become more livelier.

Of course that begged the question as to why the plum haired first year was round Shirou's house in the first place, well it all started when Shirou was helping out Rin with one of her experiments.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"_Are you sure this a good idea Tohsaka, I mean trying to combine two different mage-craft styles by inscribing a rune onto one of your gems isn't exactly very safe in my book what if you get hurt?"_

"_Oh it will be fine Emiya-kun I ran various smaller tests and all of them came out with positive results, besides I got you there with that fire extinguisher ready so theres nothing to worry about"_

"_But did you really have to inscribe a __**Fire type **__rune onto a ruby, I mean couldn't you have picked a safer element like water or wind" the Red head said trying once again to convince Rin that it was a stupid idea and they shouldn't even be doing this._

"_Oh quit your wining Emiya-kun and get that fire extinguisher ready, besides If this experiment succeeds I'll be able use Rune craft to influence the artificial gems you create as the only thing they can do is store prana, and I had to move onto larger variants sooner or later, now be quiet for a second and let me concentrate." Rin said as she grabbed the flat ruby altered by Shirou so a rune could be placed on it._

_The reason she was doing this is because after experimenting with various gems Shirou made with his reinforcement she discovered a fatal flaw in the jewel's structure that would reduce its effectiveness when it came to mage-craft._

_Jewel craft is mainly effective when a magus uses a gem that was formed under the earth over eons while being influenced by nature spirits, however Emiya-kun's artificial gems were formed through reinforcement and haven't been influenced at all, sure an average magus can use them for prana storage and to power their various spells but that was all they can do, without them being tainted by the various elements their usefulness was lessened._

_Which is why Rin hasn't sold any of them to the magus Association yet as they would find out sooner or later and come after her for selling them faulty merchandise (or just ask for their money back if they are feeling generous)._

_But by inscribing various Runes for different elements into the created rocks she would be able to influence their makeup and raise their effectiveness in regards to Jewel craft._

_So far she has had successes with weaker runes on various smaller gems, and now she was working her way up to big leagues by inscribing a fire rune onto a large rectangular flat ruby. _

_She then grabbed the handle of an industrial plasma cutter lying in the corner and began carving the Anzus rune into the ruby until the Scandinavian symbol rested on the gem._

_Normally the sight of a plasma cutter in a magus workshop was unheard off due to Rins reluctance in regards to technology, however thanks to some persuasion by Shirou (okay __**A lot **__of persuasion) Rin finally gave in and installed various electronic equipment in her workshop._

_These include the mentioned plasma cutter to cut her gems, a freezer to store her blood after Shirou heard how Rin uses a needle to draw out her blood in order to charge up her gems every time and insisted that she get it, and a coffee machine. _

_He also thought about getting her a computer but decided against it as Rin would probably destroy the piece of software in a fit of rage from trying to figure out how it works, so he settled for a mobile phone with an Ansuz rune sticker attached to the surface for improved reception. _

_With the carving process finished Rin grabbed a bag of her blood from the freezer and drew some of her blood out using a needle so she could place the blood along the cracked paths formed on the gem._

_She then recited her activation aria in German while visualising the image of a dagger piecing her heart, this was done in order to hypnotise herself and become a conduit for magic. _

_Shirou also has an activation aria of 'trace on' while visualising the hammer of a gun barrel being pulled back as he pours mana through his circuits._

_Rin had continued pouring her mana into the rune while letting it mix with the prana stored in the gem, it was a dangerous procedure just like Shirou said but a magus has to walk with death if they were going to get things done and pass o their knowledge to the next generation as taught by her Father._

_This had continued for a few minutes with the body heat in Rin's body building up thanks to her circuits being active until the prana flow stopped with Rin sweating a bit._

"_Did I do it?" Rin thought as she used Structural analysis on her gem to check the results of her work, while not as broken as Shirou's was she was still much better at it then normal magi so it was easy for her to find that her mana was safely stored with no side effects._

"_I did it! I really did it," Rin shouted excitedly at creating a successful mystic code gem using aspects of jewelcraft and runes, however it was at this moment that the Tohsaka curse struck again as the prana in the gem acted up with her focus wavering from celebrating from her success too much._

"_Rin! Let go of that now, it's going to explode!" Shirou said while activating a few of his 1824 circuits in order to trace one of his mystic codes in order to shield them from the blast._

"_Huh?" Rin blurted out before Shirou grabbed her forcing her to let go of the gem before it went critical and visualised an image of the gun barrel being pulled back before saying his activation aria and tracing a large metal shield with different runes etched around the edge of the shield appeared in his hand._

_The defensive armament he was holding was the __**Honourable**__**Shield of the alphabet, **__one of the first defensive mystic codes Shirou made using the protective properties of the entire extended runic Alphabet carved into a metal shield as well as a special Rune eched into the centre, in order to produce a bounded field around the shield capable of withstanding A rank mage craft and even noble phantasms if Rin's estimation of its capabilities were true._

_The other aspect of the Shield is its nature as an anti-projectile mystic code that was powered by both the Algiz rune the Emiya etched into the centre, as well as a Geis Shirou made by him promising to only meet ranged attacks with other ranged attacks while he is holding the shield._

_However that wasn't important right now as he poured as much mana as he could into as many rune on the shield as possible in order to activate it before the dangerously critical gem exploded sending both of the mages flying to the other side of the room before Shirou blacked out from the recoil._

_Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx _

As soon as he finished the flashback Shirou cringed at the memory of being sent flying from the recoil of Rin's spectacular failure, then again that was the weakness of the **Honourable** **Shield of the Alphabet **as it requires all of the runes on the metal surface to be activated before it could work.

And because the heir of Emiya was short on time could only activate a 5th of them which was enough to shield the both of them from half of the blast leaving Shirou to receive damage from the other half, then again that's what happens when you are on the receiving end of a magical bomb at point blank rage with only a hastily constructed shield to protect you.

After healing from that injury Shirou took a few days off school in order to recover, while the real cause of the injury was an exploding gem Shirou was forced to lie and say that one of the machines he was tinkering with exploded littering his whole body with shrapnel.

When Fuji-nee heard this she was insistent that Shirou take some days off in order to recover (after throttling him for doing something so dangerous and reckless).

What Shirou didn't expect was for the entire Archery club to come round to see how he was doing, of course the real reason they came round was to deliver notes concerning the lessons that were held during Shirou's absence, but also to sample the Emiya's rumoured 5 star cooking.

After he started making gems for Rin the twin tailed magus started selling the ones she didn't need to various jewel shops and to the department of Mineralogy at the Clocktower in order to buy back the various plots of land that her guardian lost, while at the same time paying Shirou his share of the profits which he decided to save up for various side projects that he wouldn't have been able to afford with his part-time salary.

Such as completely renovating his kitchen into something able to produce meals that would rival 5 star restaurants, needless to say Taiya's mouth was practically salivating at the thought of tasting such food.

Of course things got a little out of hand when more people then he could handle alone showed up so he needed someone to pick up the slack for him, luckily Sakura volunteered and proved to be a quick learner when Shirou showed her his various cooking techniques.

After that was over the plum haired girl came round more often in order to learn more cooking techniques from her sempai, by the time it was over Sakura had surpassed her teacher when it came to making western style food, she also frequently came round every morning in order cook for him and see if he was recovering properly.

Shirou not wanting to be out done by the student decided he needed to train more and pushed the limits of his cooking ability when he wasn't helping out Rin, training his mage craft, or going to school.

"I got to say Sakura you sure have out done yourself this time, this Japanese style breakfast is delicious" Shirou said complementing the chef which got a smile in return "it only because you were such a great teacher Sempai"

"There's no need to sell yourself short Sakura, I mean I only taught you the basics and a few recipes that I happened to think up time to time, it was your talent that managed to improve on them" the Emiya said which caused Sakura to turn away in embarrassment.

'Yeah I'm with Shirou on this one" Fuji-nee said deciding to share her two cents "In fact I'm positive you'll make your future husband a very lucky man if you happen to hook up with someone"

This of course caused the plum haired girl to blush red in embarrassment " F..F..Fujimura sensei please don't say things like that, I mean I'm still in high school and don't think I am ready for that kind of commitment just yet."

This got a laugh out of the two others in the room, which caused Sakura to sigh in defeat, at that point Shirou realised something and decided to inform his guardian about it.

"Fuji-nee don't you think you should be leaving now, I mean its already 7:30am" this caused the brown haired woman to panic and rush out the door with food still in her mouth at top speed.

"Honestly you'd think she would buy a watch at this rate, I mean theres still some left" the Emiya sighed to himself before deciding to bring the rest to her later, with that out the way he turned to the plum haired girl.

"Sakura, do you need help washing the dishes?" Shirou asked which got a shake in reply as the Matou told him she can handle the cleanup herself, as he left Sakura to clean up in order to get ready for school, his mind wondered to what had happened after that little accident at Rin's.

For the result of that little experiment was Shirou's first meeting with Rin's legal guardian and teacher Kotomine Kirei.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_As consciousness started to return to the faker he opened his eyelids and was greeted with the sight of him lying on what looks like Rin's bed, he then noticed two things about his situation._

_First was the fact that his body ached_ _all over but strangely was the fact that he was currently uninjured, no that was wrong as he did a quick analysis of his body and found that his body was in fact damaged but was healed._

_He then noticed that there was something laying on the side of the bed and found a sleeping black haired magus in a red shirt and black miniskirt muttering "stupid Shirou" in her sleep every now and again, Shirou immediately recognised the female magus as Rin and wondered if she was all right. _

"_There's no need to worry about her for now, she's just asleep from staying by your bedside until you regained consciousness though I can tell it was a failure as she couldn't stay up herself, though I have to admit your resilience is impressive if you were able to regain consciousness so quickly"_

_This caused Shirou to jump as the voice came from the other side of the bed near the door, only for the awaken magus to blink as he was face to face with the person who must have been responsible for healing him if the foreign prana in his body was anything to go by._

_This person in particular was a brown haired man in his mid 30s wearing the traditional garb of a priest and had an impressive frame, however that wasn't what was noticeable about the priest to Shirou as it was his eyes that bothered him._

_They were empty, as if the person in front of him had a void in his heart and the personality he was displaying was just a mask to hide the sheer emptiness he had._

_It was then that Shirou realised who this person was as Rin had ranted about him from time to time and there was only one church in Fuyuki that houses a priest._

"_You're Kotomine Kirei aren't you" Shirou said as the priest fit the descriptions Tohsaka-san gave him to be anyone else, normally he wouldn't be on edge when facing someone he just met but there was something about the priest that set him on edge._

"_I am, I take it that you've heard of me from my charge Rin among 'other things' truly it is quite unfortunate to have such a disrespectful apprentice though I'm sure you know all about that since you know what type of person she is right Emiya Shirou." This of course caused Shirou to stiffen as the person in front of him knew whom he was._

"_Oh yes, Rin spoke quite highly of you whenever we talked but never went into much detail of you're abilities which is understandable considering what I found when I was healing you body, such as those 'nerve circuits' of yours" as Kotomine said this with a smile on his face Shirou was once again reminded that the circuits he has are not the normal variety compared to the normal ones that magi have._

_He then scratched the back of his head in embarrassment and said "well it seemed like a good idea at the time and it worked out in the end"_

"_I'm sure it was, considering you now possess an amount that surpasses most magi families outside the Barthomeloi's, though that still begs the question as to why you were produce such an amount without dying many times over" he then focused on Shirou before continuing "though based on the other out of place thing in you that I found that might explain a few things."_

_This of course caused Shirou to widen his eyes in shock as he realised what the priest was talking about, namely a certain golden scabbard that Shirou discovered in his body when he performed structural analysis on his body a few years after Kiritsugu died._

_What he was talking about was the EX ranked Noble Phantasm __**Avalon: The Ever distant Utopia, **__the legendary scabbard of Excalibur belonging to King Arthur Pendragon._

_Shirou of course didn't know how a noble phantasm like __**Avalon**__ ended up inside him in the first place but he had his suspicions, but since his dad was now dead he had now idea how to ask him outside of learning Necromancy._

_It did however provide him an idea as to how he was able to survive turning his nerves into permanent circuits without crippling himself and deciding to try out the next best thing he could think off._

_By pouring as much prana into the Scabbard as possible and see if it works, however the experiment was a failure as no matter how much energy he feeds the scabbard the noble phantasm won't activate, though it seemed to store the prana instead so that was a step forward but it also led him to a unmistakable conclusion._

_**Avalon **__wouldn't work for anyone other then its true owner and since it was the scabbard of king Arthur it would only accept his energy and no one else, which was strange as both the sword and its scabbard were originally fairy creations given to the king by the lady of the lake and returned to her after the battle of Camlann, so they were more like loans then actual conceptual items Arthur owned.___

_Of course since the scabbard was a noble phantasm featured in the king's legend it was probably influenced by the stories passed down though the ages to only accept the kings prana and no one else's._

_So with that settled Shirou thought he might as well use the scabbard as a glorified prana storage device since __**Avalon **__wouldn't work for him, which of course caused him to focus his mind back to the present as Kirei discovered the scabbards existence inside Shirou._

"_I must admit I never expected someone like you of all people to be in possession of a noble phantasm, tell me do you know how you came into possession of such an artefact?" the priest asked curiously which caused the boy to shake his head in denial_

"_No clue it was in me for as long as I can remember, if I had to guess someone else must have gave it to me without my knowledge" Shirou admitted to the priest who merely smiled in understanding as he probably had a good idea who did it, the heir of Emiya then realised something important and wearily asked Kirei something._

"_Does Tohsaka-san know about this?" Shirou wearily asked, as he was nervous as to what would happen to him if the black haired magus found out that he had the legendary scabbard of King Arthur inside him._

"_Oh don't worry I haven't told Rin about this as I'm sure you have your reasons for hiding something like this from her, besides I can think of only one other person who possesses a noble phantasm in this day and age" the priest said causing Shirou to sigh in relief, he trusted Rin of course but even someone like him was nervous about the kinds of experiments the gem user would subject him to if she knew he had a noble phantasm inside him for around a decade._

_It was then that Shirou mentally berated himself for not asking this sooner "Kirei, how long was I out"_

"_For about 10 hours if I am right, after your little accident Rin called me from the church in order to heal you since it would be too dangerous to move you and she didn't want to take you to the hospital since the wounds were made by magic, there were a few scars here and there when I was done but fortunately I was able to get rid of them, now do you have any other questions?" Kotomine asked the red head as he tried to think about what to ask._

_As much as he distrusted the guy Shirou had to admit that he was pretty okay up until now, he then thought about something to ask that he had been meaning to ask the man._

_After Rin told him about his Fathers past before he adopted the red head as well as the existence of Kiritsugu and by proxy his adopted sister the Emiya was in shock for days not knowing how to cope with the situation, he decided to do this by finding as much info on his Father as possible in order to get a clearer picture of the situation._

_After some careful digging from using old man Raiga's recourses after explaining to the yakuza boss about he had uncovered (minus anything to do with magic of course) the grandfather of Taiga managed to find some information on Shirou's adopted Father using his connections._

_Apparently around 20 years ago Kiritsugu had married into a wealthy German family called the Einzberns and had a kid called Illyasviel with his spouse Irisviel, the family was peaceful until the German family sent Kiritsugu and his wife to take care of some business in Fuyuki city 10 years ago from today. _

_What happened in the city during that time was unclear at the time due to the lack of evidence any witness testimonies at the time but a number of strange events happened such as unexplained murders and property damage, child kidnappings and a suspiciously large number of gas leaks. _

_What the red head did know was that strange events cultivated into the 'great Fuyuki city fire' that took the life of Kiritsugu's wife Irisviel along with 500 other victims and any evidence that could have shed light on what happened during that time, leaving Shirou and a few dozen other victims as the survivors. _

_After receiving this info Shirou felt sick at the thought that __**maybe, just maybe **__his adopted father had something to do with the fire that claimed the life of his parents and many others, but quickly dismissed the idea after telling himself over and over that it couldn't be the case._

_The disaster also caused further misfortune to the elder Emiya as according to the info gathered by the Fujimuras some members of the Einzberns who were against the marriage used this event as an excuse to disown Kiritsugu from the family._

_Plus as insult to injury they used the best lawyers money could buy to not only gain custody of Kiritsugu's daughter Illya, but also revoke his visiting rights so he could never see his child again, this info was provided by a German prosecutor called Manfred von Karma who was an attorney with a bone to pick with the Einsbern family. _

_This new info Shirou uncovered explained why his dad often vanished for months on end only to come home dejected like it was the end of the world._

_When Shirou later asked Rin who told the girl about his father she said the person who told her about Kiritsugu was her legal guardian Kotomine Kirei, with the Emiya back to the present he decided he might as well ask the man about his old man._

"_Kotomine Kirei, can I ask you something very important?" Shirou asked which got a raised eyebrow in return "what may that be, how can this humble priest answer your query"_

_The red head then took a deep breath and said "what can you tell me about my father?" this caused Kirei to smile as he was expecting this but decided to tempt the male a bit "I'm sorry could you be more specific, perhaps a name would suffice" _

"_He's doing this on purpose," Shirou annoyingly thought before calming down and saying "Emiya Kiritsugu, I know that you told Rin about my father so I thought that you might know about the 'magus killer' in more detail if I am correct"_

"_Indeed you are right" came the reply from the priest "I admit that I was surprised when Rin told me that you had no idea about your fathers 'reputation' I would have thought that he would have told you himself being his son and all"_

"_I was adopted, plus my old man wasn't a very talkative person when it involves his past, heck I didn't even know my dad used to kill people for a living so I was wondering what you might know about him."_

_After some careful thought Kirei decided he might as well enlighten the adopted son of his most hated enemy "very well Emiya Shirou" but before could continue Shirou decided they might as well have a change of venue as Rin was still sleeping by her bed, so he got up grabbed the sleeping Tohsaka and laid her down gently before grabbing his shirt from the nearby chair and followed the priest into the living room._

"_So would you like the Abridged version or the __**cold hard truth**__" after deciding that it was too late to back out now Shirou opted for the first option before Kirei decided to start from the beginning._

_Emiya Kiritsugu was a fifth generation magus born to Noritaka Emiya, the fourth head of the Emiya family who received a Sealing Designation for doing forbidden research, causing him to loose his wife after his son was born and the two have been on the run ever since._

_From then on information on the two was scarce until they surfaced again on the island of Alimango in the Philippines when a certain incident happened as a result of Noritakas research into vampires._

_The reason for the Emiya head to lift the ban on vampirism research was unclear but based on notes recovered from his workshop it was related to his families' research into time-manipulation._

_Apparently a local Noritaka hired as an assistant who drank one of his vials containing the vampirism caused the outbreak, the main goal of the Emiya heads research was to create a vampire who could control his/her bloodlust but the vial the local drank was considered a failure as the now turned female went on a blood drinking rampage throughout the town causing it to become completely infected with the dead in a matter of hours._

_From there clean up teams from both the magus association and the holy church arrived to destroy the dead, kill or mind wipe any survivors, and find the sealed magus who caused the outbreak in the first place, although based on the testimony of a freelance magus called Natalia they didn't have to look far as his dead body was discovered in his workshop._

_Killed by his own son._

_Apparently the young Kiritsugu was in the village when it was infested with the undead and discovered the kind of research his father was into, realising that if he escaped with Noritaka then he would continue with his forbidden research into vampirism so after making a difficult decision the young Emiya chose to murder his father in order to prevent another tragedy like the Alimango incident from happening again._

_From there the Association collected the Emiya heads body and all of his remaining research while leaving the church to do the rest of the clean-up, as for Kiritsugu he was taken under the freelance magus Natalia's wing after the incident and had been living with her ever since._

_The association found this out when the woman made an inquiry to the clock tower to transfer the Emiya family crest to her charge since it was his birthright, however since the previous head was a sealed magus Kiritsugu only received a portion of the crest while the association kept the rest._

_From there the young Emiya worked alongside Natalia as a sealing designate enforcer based on eyewitness reports taken at the time moving from conflict to conflict and this had continued until they went after a dead apostle named Odd Borzak._

_Based on information the association gathered on the incident the apostle had boarded an Airbus A300 jumbo jet in order to met a colleague of his in New York, Natalia had boarded the plane with the target in order to eliminate him while Kiritsugu travelled to the destination of the two in order to kill Borzak's associate._

_However based on info gathered from the JFK airport control tower it seemed that they had lost contact with the A300 jumbo jet so after receiving feedback from Natalia her charge acquired a boat and travelled to a specific location along the planes flight path want waited._

_Some time later the A300 was shot down by what was theorised to be a missile launcher as it had the necessary firepower to destroy a plane that size._

_The investigators from the Church were confused as to the reason for this action and they couldn't interrogate Kiritsugu for shooting down a plane carrying its entire crew and passengers including his benefactor Natalia, the reason for this action remained unsolved to this day._

_From then on the now solo freelance hunter travelled the world hunting down sealing designates and dead apostles, as well as hiring him out as a mercenary. Plus although his abilities as a magus were considered average at best his numerous specialties in tracking, assassination, guerrilla warfare and other abilities when it came to killing earned him the title of 'magus killer'. _

_However his time as a solo act didn't last forever as he had picked up a former child solder from a war torn country in the Middle East and took her on as an apprentice, her real name was unknown so she went by the alias Maiya Hisau, from then on information on the two stopped when the 'magus killer' married into the Einzbern family 2 years later and supposedly went into early retirement until the Japanese man set off for Fuyuki City 9 years later in order to serve as the Einzbern family representative in a specific ritual._

"_The holy grail war?" Shirou repeated out loud making sure he heard that right._

"_Indeed, also known as the Heavens feel ritual that happens in the land of Fuyuki every 50 years, a battle royale between 7 mages using powerful familiars known as servants who combat each over for the right to possess the holy grail, and no I am not talking about the cup of Jesus Christ or the one featured in Arthurian legend but an omnipotent wish granting device capable of granting any wish." Kotomine paused letting this info sink in before continuing._

"_Due to the sort of damage a battle like that could cause and thereby threaten the secrecy of magic a mediator from the church was dispatched in order to protect the sanctity of the war and act as a neutral party in the conflict, my father Risei served as the mediator in the third war and reprised his role in the fourth." After hearing Kirei recount his tales of the war Shirou then realised something he remembered from his own investigation into Kiritsugu's activities._

"_So then the unnatural number of gas leaks, property damage, and child kidnappings were because of the war?" Shirou guessed having put the two facts together._

"_You're well informed; indeed it is as you say, the gas leaks were my fathers way of covering up the battle between the seven servants as they tend to cause large amount of property damage in their wake." _

"_As for kidnappings well they were carried out by one of the masters and his servant in order use them as sacrifices for their mage craft, it had gotten so out of hand that my father had to temporarily stop the war in order for the other masters to concentrate on eliminating the rouge servant and his master" the priest said which caused Shirou to clench his teeth in rage at the kind of atrocities that the pair committed 10 years ago._

_Since Shirou was only 7 years old at the time he could have easily have been one of the kidnapped children if they had operated a little closer to where he used to live, fortunately that wasn't the case._

_Deciding that he let Shirou have enough time to process this info the teacher of Rin continued "After the two of them were taken care of the conflict resumed like normal until there were only 2 servants left which was at the point that the grail choose to manifest itself, however an unworthy master managed the grail causing a powerful backlash that enveloped a sizable chunk of the city."_

_Kotomine watched in interest as Shirou came to a horror filled realisation as to what the priest just told him before swallowing and croaking out "you mean?"_

"_Exactly, the backlash from the grail caused a massive fire covering a large portion of the Shinto district, an unprecedented disaster that claimed the life of 500 victims with only a few people to have survived, but I'm sure you know all about it don't you Emiya Shirou" _

_At the realisation that this Holy Grail war was the main reason for the horrible fire 10 years ago that left Shirou an orphan and burned away a large portion of his memories the Emiya started to feel dizzy like he could throw up any minute._

"_While I understand that this must be a trying realisation for you, I would advise that you let it out somewhere else as I doubt Rin would take kindly to you throwing up on her carpet" the priest deadpanned with no remorse for the inner turmoil that Shirou was going through._

_This of course had the weird effect of calming Shirou down as he glared at Kirei before the brown haired man shrugged if off before continuing. _

"_From there information on your father stopped as he seemed to have disappeared of the map, though based on your words it seemed that he took up residence in Fuyuki if your adoption was anything to go by, so was the truth of your father enlightening"_

_As soon as Kotomine finished talking Shirou said that it was more then he could have hoped for before thanking the priest and decided to go home before asking Kirei to tell Rin that he was all right._

_After Shirou left it was a couple more hours before Rin woke up to the sight of the priest looking down on her and telling the girl that the Emiya boy was alright and that he had already left leaving the Tohsaka girl a message saying Thank You for healing him._

_Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_

After that night contact between Shirou and Rin was strained at best as Tohsaka-san stopped talking to him for weeks, which caused the Emiya boy some confusion as to the reason for this alienation.

The reason Rin stopped talking to the red head was because she felt guilty for causing Shirou to get caught in her experiment and tried to apologise but couldn't bear to tell him due to her Tsundere nature as it would be admitting that she cared for his safety, combine this with her pride as a magus and she stopped talking to him completely outside of seeing each over at school.

On a plus note the black haired magus managed to use the info gained from the failed experiment in order to perfect her **Rune Gems, **which proved to be just as effective as regular jewels but cheaper to produce. She had even sent a few samples to the department of Mineralogy at the clock tower, which were well received by the department head and requested regular shipments while negotiating the selling rates over written letters.

The stalemate had continued until the Archery vice captain Ayako decided to do something about it.

Since Ayako and Rin attended the same homeroom the brown haired tomboy knew that her club captain and her classmate were friends so she deduced that Rin might have had something to do with the red-heads injury if she didn't talk to him due to feeling guilty about the event.

So she decided to hatch a plan in order for the two of them to make up by calling the two of them to a specific classroom after school and locked the door behind them when they entered telling the two of them that they were not aloud out until they sorted out their differences.

Under normal circumstances the two magi would have just broke the door down with thaumaturgy but since Ayako was outside that option was out the window so they stood in the classroom trying to start a conversation.

"So…what do you want to talk about?" Shirou said deciding he might as well start, as they wouldn't get anywhere if no one starts talking.

"huh..oh nothing in particular, what do **you** think we should be talking about" Rin replied unsure how to respond to such a situation, ever since he had heard about his father from Kotomine his mind was in a bit of turmoil, seeing that he might as well get it off his chest Shirou decided to begin.

"You know I talked to Kotomine after you asked him to heal me after that experiment" the red head said surprising Rin as the fake priest never said anything about that.

"I…see, what did you think of him?" the daughter of Tokiomi said waiting for Shirou to reply.

"I didn't like him, I don't know why but there was something about him that just felt wrong to me" Shirou admitted causing Rin to smile "I see well it seems that we have something in common"

'In all the time that I have known that fake priest I can honestly say that he was among the worst people I have ever met, its quite unfortunate that I was stuck with a teacher like that" Rin said as she sat down on one of the chairs to share her thoughts, this of course caused Shirou to sweatdrop.

"Rin, I know he seems like a twisted person but surely he isn't that bad" he said which got a reply in return 'oh he isn't infact he's an excellent teacher considering he only started learning mage craft for a few years before my Father died"

"Its his other qualities that are the problem, you see he's the type of person who enjoys finding the faults in a persons character and throwing it into the persons face, and don't even get me started on his choice of food" Rin admitted remembering the boiling hot Mabo Tofu that Kotomine enjoys.

In fact Rin had to learn to cook for herself since she was young or eat Mabo Tofu every day since her mom was permanently stuck in the hospital for brain damage.

"So what was it that he talked to you about?" she asked which caused Shirou to think for a bit whether to say or not before letting it out.

"I asked him about my father the 'magus killer since you told me he was the one who informed you about him in the first place" the son of Kiritsugu deadpanned which caused Rin to widen her eyes in shock before she sighed and looked at him in pity.

"I see…. he told you about his connection with the Einzberns didn't he" it was obvious that Kiritsugu was hired by the German family to win the 4th holy grail war, Rin just didn't think that the family was that desperate as the Einzberns have a dislike for Asians shared by most noble families in the Clock tower, but she guessed it was expected since they lost the previous three wars.

Rin then understood why Shirou was so distant or never approached her about the accident, because if Kiritsugu Emiya was a master 10 years ago then there was a chance that he may have had a hand in the death of Rins father since he was the master representing the Tohsaka family in the conflict.

Seeing the look on Shirou's face confirming that she was right Rin then proceeded to walk up to the red-head, and flick him in the forehead with a reinforced finger sending the heir of Emiya stumbling back clutching his forehead.

"Owww, what the hell was that for Tohsaka-san" Shirou said in annoyance while rubbing his head.

"You really are an idiot Emiya-kun, do you really think that I would blame you on the small chance that **maybe** your adopted father was responsible for the death of mine, 'a magus is someone who walks with death' remember, my father knew what he was getting into when he choose to enter the war so his fate was entirely up to him whether he won or lost."

"Besides you weren't even an Emiya back during the war so you aren't entitled to a share of the blame for your fathers actions since you were adopted, so do yourself a favour and stop blaming yourself for the sins of the 'magus killer'"

This speech had the desired affect as Shirou looked at the black haired magus in shock before softening in understanding; he then sighed and said "man, I really have been an idiot these past few weeks"

"Well that's one thing we agree on, and don't even dare take the blame for that accident cause if It wasn't for you the injuries would have been much worse, besides if anyone should say sorry for that it should be me."

It was then that Shirou stood there in silence as he tried to realise what Rin just said during that last sentence "Tohsaka-san, what did you just say?"

It seemed that Rin also realised what had come out of her mouth as she went redder then the casual shirts she wears and stuttered "wa wa wa wa wa what that's not what I meant, what I meant to say was..was…was"

She then gave up and looked away with her arms crossed not looking at Shirou at the least "Its nothing forget about it" which caused the red head to look at her confused before shrugging.

It was then that Shirou realised that they were still locked in the classroom with each over and said, "shouldn't we tell Ayako to let us out now" which caused Rin to blush in embarrassment and nodded in agreement.

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It had been a few days since Shirou had talked to Kotomine Kirei as he was currently in his private office in the church in order to review the sermon he was going to use the next day, he was currently in a good mood despite the boring work he was doing.

"You seem to be in a very good mood Kirei" came the sound of a voice filled with unparalleled egotism, which came from the side door leading to the sermon hall, as he looked that way to view his visitor he was greeted with the familiar face of a blond haired man with red eyes wearing expensive designer clothes.

This person was the ancient king of Uruk Gilgamesh, the king of heroes; the oldest person to be accepted into the throne of heroes and a heroic spirit summoned as the servant Archer from the fourth Holy Grail war.

The king of heroes was originally summoned by Rin's father Tokiomi Tohsaka to fight for the Tohsaka family in the heavens feel while Kirei called forth Assassin, however when Kirei lost his servant to the servant Rider the priest managed to convince the king of heroes to betray his master and become Kotomine's servant after he told Gilgamesh the truth behind the heavens feel ritual.

The Tohsakas, Makiri, and Einzbern families originally conceived the Holy Grail war on order to open up a path to Akasha by causing 6 of the servants to die through combat and ordering the last surviving servant to kill himself by order of a command seal, the whole wish granting story was something spread by the families in order to lure outsiders to the conflict in order to gather the four other servants necessary for the ritual.

However as the years went by the original purpose of the ritual was forgotten by all but one of the founding families, the Einzbern originally participated in order to recover the Third magic that they had lost centuries ago however as they suffered loss after loss their objective changed from recovering the Heavens feel to winning the grail war.

The Makiri, specifically the family head Makiri Zougen entered the war in order to obtain immortality in order to fulfil the wish of the person who sacrificed herself in order to become the core of the Greater Holy Grail, however as he used his mage craft in order to extend his life he had eventually been reduced to an old evil worm seeking immortality without even remembering why he wanted to live forever in the first place.

Only the Tohsaka family retained the original purpose of the ritual, which eventually passed to the family head Tokiomi in which he had planned to betray his servant from the start and order him to die with a command seal when the other 6 were taken care off, Kotmine Kirei knew this which is how he managed to convince the king of heroes to become his servant after the priest killed his teacher.

From there the two proceeded to manipulate the conflict until only two pairs remained where Kirei battled the Einzbern representative Emiya Kiritsugu underneath the Fuyuki community hall, however their fight was interrupted when the contents of the grail spilled on the two of them only to be regurgitated as the 'magus killer' put a bullet through the priests heart, but not before the priest made one last wish to the grail to cause everything in the surrounding area to just disappear.

Meanwhile Kiritsugu's servant Saber had just finished her fight with Berserker when she arrived at the building where the grail was located, only for Archer to be there waiting for her after he finished dispatching Rider.

From there the king of heroes battled the king of knights while proposing to her at the same time needless to say she declined however if there was any defining qualities of the king of heroes it was that he was persistent.

However he never got the chance to get Saber to marry him as her master Kiritsugu used his last remaining command seals to order her to destroy the grail causing her to vanish in the process after using up all of her remaining reserves.

But it didn't stop there as destroying the grail vassal caused the pathway to the root in the sky formed by the sacrificed servants to collapse and spill black mud on Gilgamesh and engulfed a vast chunk of the city in unholy fire.

Normally the king of heroes would have dissolved in the mud after coming in contact with it, however he had such a strong ego that it spat him back out with a brand new body for his troubles.

This also meant that Kotomine Kirei survived as well since he had a connection to Gilgamesh and gained a new heart to replace the one destroyed by Kiritsugu, from there the priest decided to gather up all the children orphaned in the fire and use them as living batteries to power the king of heroes noble phantasms since the priest can't feed him prana the normal way anymore.

That and he don't swing that way.

"Ah Gilgamesh I didn't realise that you were there, tell me when did you get back to Fuyuki" the priest said as he was greeted by his old servant who left Fuyuki since the war 10 years ago in order to travel the world.

"Just now Kirei, I would have contacted you earlier but I saw that you were busy with your sermons so I waited until they were over, so did anything interesting happen while I was away?" the king of heroes asked curious as to the condition of the land where he was granted a second chance of life, after all what else was there to do in this dull and boring era that he had been reborn in

"As a matter of fact your highness there is something that I am sure would interest you, it seems that the next grail war will be stating 50 years earlier then expected" the current mediator from the church said which sure got the king of heroes attention.

"Really now that is interesting news, I would have thought that the grail needs that 60 year time period in order to draw the necessary mana from the land to start the ritual" the king theorised as he was well informed of the schematics of the heavens feel ritual despite having an ego the size of mount Everest.

"That is true your highness however I believe that maybe the end of the last war had something to do with it" Kirei explaining that because Kiritsugu destroyed the grail before a wish could have been used, the energy from the defeated servants were stored before returning to Akasha an contributed in filling the grail with the necessary mana it needed to start the ritual after only a 10 year period.

"Then tell me this Kotomine, how is it that you have come to this information" Gilgamesh asked which got a smile in return.

"It seemed that the Einzbern family came to this same conclusion before I did, as they had decided to bend the rules of the conflict again by summoning a servant of the Berserker class last week before the greater grail started distributing mana to help support the summoned familiars" the priest said as he found this little bit of info using a mystic code passed down from his father that displays all the summoned servants on a recreation of the city, the icon displaying Berserker wasn't on this however it did display an arrow pointing west meaning that the servant was summoned overseas.

"A fruitless effort" the king of heroes remarked as he knew right there and then that no matter how much they tried they will never win the grail as it belonged to him and him alone, it wasn't confidence or a promise but simply a fact. He then asked Kirei if the other 6 were summoned.

"Not yet I am afraid, the grail won't start for another couple of months so there is plenty of time for them to be summoned by the chosen masters, which I happen to know would definably be chosen" the priest said as the golden king of Babylon raised his eyebrow curious.

"Oh, and who might those be Kotomine?" the king of heroes said to which the black hearted priest continued.

"Apart from the three founding families that are guaranteed spots in the war there a couple of magi that I happen to be acquainted with who I am sure would be chosen, the first is an enforcer from the association called Bazett Fraga Mcritiz." At hearing this name the king of heroes nodded in understanding as he heard that name from Kirei before.

"Ah yes now I remember, she was that woman you were talking about when you got back from that one Philosopher hunt" Gilgamesh said with neutrality.

"Indeed, she not only is a skilled hand to hand combatant with a degree of mastery in runes, but she had told me over the phone recently that she had come across a certain relic linked to Irelands son of light Cu-chulainn which I have no doubt she will use as her summoning catalyst to summon the Irish heroic spirit" the priest said with a smile as the king of heroes understood what he was thinking and grinned as well.

"You're planning on betraying her and taking her servant just like with that boring Mongrel Tokiomi aren't you Kirei," the ancient king of Uruk said understanding what his former master had in mind.

"Indeed king of heroes, if the grail war is really starting early then we need to scout out the other masters in order gather enough Intel on them so you can use the **Gate of Babylon **to its fullest extent, and what better scout then Irelands national hero."

"Indeed, it is a fitting role for a dog" the King of heroes said as he was familiar with Cu Chulainn's legend since he has the prototype of the hounds weapon Gae-Bolg "And what might this second master you mentioned be Kirei?"

At this question the priest simply smiled and revealed the one other person he is sure would enter the war "Emiya Shirou, the adopted son of Saber's former master from the previous war Emiya Kiritsugu, who I am sure you are familiar with"

Indeed he did know about the former contender in the fourth war as he snarled at the memory of that Mongrel who dared interrupted his wedding with the king of knights by ordering her to destroy the grail with his command seals. But decided to ignore it for now, as he knows that the man was dead after hearing it from Kirei.

"Indeed you are right Kirei, so mind telling me your thoughts as to why you think this son of a mongrel would be a master in the next war?" the king of heroes demanded which got an answer from the priest.

"Its quite simple my king, you see I encountered this young man after I came round my charge Rin's house in order to heal her classmate who was helping her with one of her experiments"

"Imagine my surprise when I found that she had been I found out this associate of hers was the adopted son of the 'magus killer' or that he had never even heard of his father exploits until I revealed them to him; including the man's involvement in the grail war, needless to say I quite enjoyed destroying any images that the boy may have had about his father" the priest said recalling the memory fondly.

"If he shares the same childish dream as his father then I am positive he will enter the war in order to reduce the number of civilian casualties, because of this I am positive that this years war will provide you with ample entertainment my king." The mediator of the Holy Grail war said as he waited for the king of heroes' verdict.

"Very well Kotomine Kirei, lets see how far this heavens feel will go" the King of Heroes said as the two of them plotted in order to ensure that the course of the war will suit their goals.

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**Hello viewers Epicgamer484 here, I got to say that the rate that my story is going is pretty good considering I got around 46 reviews with only 2 chapters**

**First I would like to talk about one of my additions to this chapter, mainly Rune gems which were my way of solving a flaw that was not explored in Third Fangs fic From Fake Dreams which involved the fact that since Shirou's artificial gems were not tainted by nature spirits they were less effective with jewel-craft then normal gems as mentioned in one of my reviews.**

**My other addition is Shirou's first mystic code the Honourable Shield of the Alphabet, a powerful defensive weapon that would prove to be a perfect counter to Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon if used right. **

**By inscribing runes into various gems Rin would be able to influence the created gemstones herself and create cheaper and more cost effective jewels for her mage craft.**

**Also I would like to apologise if my depiction of Rin may seem OC as i don't have much experience writing Tsunderes so if anyone wants to give me any tips I would really appreciate it.**

**(Spoiler alert-read at your own risk)**

**Also I would like to mention that my version of the fifth grail war will feature an additional seven servants summoned by the cannon masters as well as a Ruler class to manage the conflict with an additional seven servants added to the mix, with an extra two masters chosen to replace the ones killed before the start of the war. **

**I will not use any OC's as the extra servants will all be taken from other Fate franchises but if anyone wants to give me advice on who gets who let me know. **

**Finally I would like to issue a challenge to any Fan Authors out there to see if they can create a fic based on this idea:**

**What if the Class cards appeared in Uminari city?**

**I would be a Fate/ kaleid prisma Illya X Fate stay night X Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha crossover in which the Class cards featured in Prisma Illya appear during the same time as the jewel seed incident, it will also take elements from Lyrical Days by Beast lairs Fraggle in which a 9 year old Shirou Emiya moves with his Father to Uminari and gets caught up in both the class card and jewel seed hunt.**

**The reason I thought of this is because the thought of Shirou using both the Archer class card and a jewel seed to summon the abilities of Counter Guardian EMIYA to combat Saber Alter is just too good to pass up.**

**Normally I would write this myself but I figured I finish Circuit Network first before having a go so if anyone wants to take this challenge be my guest. **

**So as always please review and see you next time.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters featured in this fanfic, they are the property of Type-moon, besides if I did I would create a Fate/stay night X Blazblue crossover due to their similarities.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Circuit Network chapter 4**

The Holy Grail war

Also known as the Heavens feel. A large scale ritual conceived through the combined efforts of three magi families and the wizard Marshall himself, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, master of the second magic and number 4 of the 27 Dead Apostle Ancestors.

The Ritual in question was devised by three families from Germany, Russia, and Japan respectively, they were the Einzbern, a group of magi who specialize in the art of homunculi creation one of which is the Winter saint herself Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern.

The Makiri were a family that specialized in the use of familiars particularly insects, they were lead by the current head Zolgen Makiri who was a pretty level headed magus compared to the rest of his kind.

And finally the Tohsaka's, a clan of secret Christians during a time in Japan when the religion was persecuted against by the Tokugawa shogunate, they were lead by the father of Ren Tohsaka, Nagato Tohsaka, also known as the only one of the wizard Marshall's apprentices to survive with both his life and sanity intact.

These four individuals including the master of the second magic each contributed to the ritual in order to produce something capable of piercing a hole in reality and unlock a hole to Akasha.

Nagato provided the land of Fuyuki in the island country of Japan that was being overseed by his family in order to provide the ritual with power through the areas powerful leylines.

Justeaze constructed the Greater grail underneath Mt Ryuudou that would use a degraded version of the Third magic in order to summon familiars that would serve as sacrifices to power the ritual while the winter saint served as the core of the grail herself.

Zelretch used his mastery of the second magic to connect the grail to the throne of heroes, a realm in Akasha that serves as a record for the greatest heroes that humanity has to offer in order for the grail to summon degraded versions of them to serve as a power source to open the road to the Root.

Finally Zolgen constructed the servant containers to house the resurrected heroes for the ritual, and command seals to control them and force them to die in order to power the grail.

Normally the ritual was supposed to only feature the three families fighting for the right to reach Akasha, however they soon discovered that the grail needs 7 summoned heroic spirits in order to open the road to Akasha, so they decided to alter the rules so that seven servants are needed for the ritual and spread rumors that the grail was a wish granting device capable of granting the surviving master their deepest desires which served two purposes:

Luring outsiders into the conflict in order to gather the needed seven needed heroic spirits, and to ensure that both outside masters and servants would kill each over for the chance to grant their wish.

And so the Heavens Fell had officially begun.

Which proved to be nothing more then a small quarrel as the contestants had differing opinions on how the Ritual was supposed to go, eventually the conflict ended prematurely for an unknown reason.

When the next Ritual happened 60 years later it was renamed the Holy Grail war, however the conflict degraded into a bloodbath leaving behind no survivors. After the war ended it was decided that they would let a third party into the war in order manage the conflict and keep it fair.

By the time the third grail war came around the three families and the Association decided that it was the best course of action to ask the holy church for assistance in managing the conflict and so they sent their agent Kotomine Risei to act as overseer.

However it was during the war that one of the contenders made a very big mistake that ended compromising the ritual forever, the Einzbern family frustrated with their continuous losses in the previous wars decided that they needed a servant that would be able to slaughter the other servants effortlessly regardless if the hero in question was good or evil.

So the Einzbern master decided to summon the Persian god of darkness Angra mainyu in a custom made servant container known as Avenger, however what they got was a weakling human that didn't even put up a fight against the Edelfeit master and her servant Saber.

There was also the fact that one of the masters Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia was working with the Nazis in order to steal the grail and take it back to Germany in order for it to help them win the war, however thanks to the effort of servant Ruler who was a heroic spirit summoned by the grail to protect the sanctity of the holy grail war the German master was defeated.

However what the masters and servants didn't know at the time was that when servant Avenger was defeated his essence entered the grail in order to power it for the end of the ritual, however the weak 'hero' ended up corrupting the grail with its influence causing the very core of the heavens feel ritual to become dark and evil.

This was due to the unique nature of Avenger, what the Einzberns didn't realize at the time was that the legend of Angra mainyu originated from a small village in the past that held a very unusual ritual in which they would randomly select a villager and declare him as all the evils of the world, hoping that by pouring all of their evils onto him they would in turn be devoid of sin.

By the time the villager died he was sent to the Throne of Heroes because the wish of the village for him to become all the worlds evils so that they may be cleansed of their sins caused him to become a living wish easing the minds of the villagers.

When Avenger was defeated his essence as a living wish entered the grail whose purpose was to grant wishes, needless to say it was granted.

By the time the fourth war came around the grail was corrupted enough to allow the summoning of 'Anti-heroes' villains recorded in history that unintentionally saved lives through their actions. Also because Avenger was stuck in the grail for 60 years he lost his sense of 'self' becoming the personification of 'all the worlds evils', it then waited inside the grail for the winning master to grant his wish so that it could use the opportunity to twist the wish in a way that would maximize the destruction caused in its wake and be 'born' into the world.

Luckily for humanity a master by the name of Kiritsugu Emiya discovered the truth behind the corrupted grail and ordered his servant via a command seal to destroy the grail-preventing Avenger from escaping but not before cursing the 'magus killer' and causing a fire that took the life of 500 people in the surrounding area.

However this was not the end as Kiritsugu only destroyed the lesser grail meant to contain the souls of the defeated servants and open the door to Akasha. While the Greater grail underneath Ryuudou temple remained intact allowing the ritual to begin again only 10 years after the 4th.

Now normally in other versions of the 5th war the adopted son of Kiritsugu called Shirou Emiya was dragged into the conflict by summoning the servant Saber wo was the last of the 7 to be summoned, after talking to the priest in charge of managing the war he decided to enter the grail war so that the disaster that claimed the life of his parents and 500 others 10 years ago would never happen again.

However this version of the war isn't going to be like the others due to the discovery made by the young man in that tool shed 5 years ago when he turned his nerves into permanent circuits, and how does this apply to the holy grail war you may ask?

Well it all started 15 hours before the seventh servant was summoned.

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It was a quite sunny day in the Emiya household, the sun was shining the birds were singing and there no abnormal events or people in sight to make life more uncomfortable for our main protagonist.

"SHIRRROU WHERE ARE YOU I'M HUNGRY"

Well except one hyperactive yakuza princess/teacher who unfortunately or fortunately depending on who you ask is the legal guardian of the hero of this story Shirou Emiya.

Who at this moment was running towards the kitchen in order to beat Sakura to it in order to cook breakfast today, now normally the red head didn't mind having the plum haired girl over during the mornings, but it would be nice to cook breakfast so that he could show his junior how much his cooking in regards to Western food.

"Ah sempai there you are, could you help me set up the plates as I could use the extra hands'

Sadly that wasn't the case as Sakura Matou was there in the kitchen using his kitchen to create a tasty and nutritious breakfast, seeing that he was beaten to the kitchen today the head of house did what he was asked to do and went to pick up the plates and chopsticks and laid them over the table.

However before he could do so he noticed something odd about the plum haired girl as she was covered in faint bruises on her arms and face, seeing these Shirou instantly knew where these came from as he had seen them before.

"Sakura" he said seriously getting the Matou's attention "yes sempai?" she asked nervously as the girl had a sneaking suspicion as to what Shirou wanted to ask about.

"Tell me truthfully, has Shinji been beating you again? And please don't give me a half-baked excuse as 'you fell down the stairs' as I know your not that clumsy."

This had the desired effect as Sakura looked at him slightly afraid as to the repercussions her adopted brother would do to both her and Shirou if she answered truthfully, especially after gaining his new 'toy', so deciding that the only way to prevent this from going downhill the submissive girl suffering from 'beaten wife syndrome' decided to lie and hoped that he bought it.

"N..n…no sempai its nothing life that, I was practicing with some archery equipment in the storage room and accidentally injured myself on an old bow that snapped" she then mentally berated herself for making such a stupid lie, after all what kind of idiot would believe something like that?

As Shirou looked at Sakura he had went into deep thought as to what to do next, it was obvious that his kouhai (junior student) was lying in order to cover for her brother as the club has a strict policy to dispose of any Archery equipment that would prove to be dangerous to the club members, plus it pretty much confirmed his suspicions as Sakura's body language was proof enough.

"I see, in that case Sakura please be careful when using any dangerous equipment in the store room as Fuji-nee would have a fit if one of her clubs students were injured due to faulty equipment" the red head said causing Sakura to sigh in relief.

"Shiiirou, Sakuuura where's the food my stomachs growling" the grown woman at the table wined causing the two of them to snap out of their funk and bring the food over and start eating.

As the three of them were eating the TV they were watching was showing a news bulletin about the latest string of gas-leaks plaguing the city of Fuyuki over the last few days, as well as more families to be attacked in their homes.

Naturally Shirou being a magus was aware that these string of events were no coincidence as they were highly involved with a particular event going on in the city, speaking of which he should talk about it with Tohsaka since she must have meet her new 'friend' by now.

"Man, these attacks just keep coming don't they Shirou" his guardian addressed the Archery captain snapping Shirou out of his thoughts.

"Huh?...oh yes Fuji-nee I was just thinking about how these 'accidents' will affect club meetings apart from the imposed curfew in the city" the Emiya said as he brought out a subject that he had been worried about since these events began.

"Oh don't worry Shirou there's no way that the school would stop the Archery club practices just because of a few gas leaks, I mean the principal said to me yesterday that he wants to concentrate on the students education and not have them worried about the accidents" the adviser of the Archery club said before thinking about something and looked at her charge.

"Speaking of the curfew Shirou can you make sure that the hole club pitches in on putting the equipment away and not do it yourself like you always, as it would look bad for the Archery captain to be out after Curfew because he was putting the Archery equipment away himself alriiiight" the brown haired woman looked at her charge not taking no for an answer before Shirou backed away nervously and nodded his head in agreement.

After that was taken care off Fuji nee finished off her meal and left to attend her morning duties at school on time without rushing (for once) leaving the two teens too clean up, lock up and head for school.

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As Shirou headed to the place of high-school education in Fuyuki city the magic-user let his mind wonder for a bit about the true events surrounding Fuyuki while getting quick glances towards his right hand that was covered in bandages in order to hide a mark that appeared on his hand a few days ago.

When he showed the mark to Rin when he came round her house the next day, she was both shocked and worried as she recognized it and decided to tell Shirou the shocking truth she heard about from Kirei last week.

That the 5th Holy Grail war was starting 50 years early.

This of course caused the heir of Emiya to have a minor panic attack as he still remembered the Fuyuki city fire that was a direct aftermath of the last war and was horrified that such a conflict was happening again.

At first Rin was confused at the red head's actions before he confessed that he was a survivor of the Fuyuki city fire 10 years ago that left him an orphan and led to him being adopted by Kiritsugu Emiya, naturally the black haired girl felt sorry for him after hearing that.

Which was why she was surprised to hear him declare that he was going to participate in the war in order to make sure that the disaster that happened 10 years ago never happened again, naturally Rin tried to convince him not to go along with it but he said that he was insistent.

After hearing Shirou's declaration Rin could only sigh at his antics and decided that she might as well tell him what she knew about the war.

The holy grail war summons heroic spirits from across time and space in order to compete for the holy grail, however not even the grail could fully incarnate a heroic spirit so they were instead put into pre-made servant containers that reflect the skills they had in life:

**Saber,** knight of the sword and possesses the most outstanding stats of the seven classes.

**Archer,** knight of the bow who is a marksman specalising in mid-range and long-range combat, as well as possessing the skill **Independent action.**

**Lancer,** knight of the spear and the most agile of the seven (as well as the most unlucky).

**Rider,** hero of the mount who usually possesses the most destructive of noble phantasms.

**Berserker, **the servant of madnesswho is traditionally weak heroes who trade in their sanity in exchange for power.

**Assassin, **the masters of silent killing who use **Presence Concealment **to kill their prey with ease.

**Caster, **the hero of magic, a magus possessing thaumaturgy lost to the modern era.

She then talked about the command seals, marks distributed by the grail to prove their rights as masters and to serve as a way for masters to control their servants, when Shirou heard about these he was disgusted with them as it was no better then slavery.

When she heard this Rin was forced to agree with him but said that it was a necessary precaution to prevent the summoned servants from turning against their masters as the pairs would sometimes have conflicting personalities, especially if the magus used a catalyst linked to a specific hero.

She then said that the chosen magi only get three command seals each and once they use them up that's it, however they can be used for more then controlling their familiars as they can also be used to allow their servants to perform feats on par with true magic if used right.

After explaining all she can about the war she asked the red head if he had a summoning aria ready, however the puzzled look on Shirou's face was proof enough, she then written one down for him on a piece of paper and told him to memorize it while suggesting he add a few changes to make it unique to him.

She then told him to wait before summoning his servant as the only two classes left to summon were Saber and Archer, and since Rin wanted Saber she told him to wait until she summoned first before he did, Shirou didn't mind as he was okay with an Archer class servant.

However there was no guarantee that Rin would get the class that she wanted since she told him she didn't have a summoning catalyst in her families vaults, she could have asked Kirei for one but decided against it as she didn't want to rely the fake priest anymore then necessary.

Which brought us back to the present time as Shirou was assaulted by a nauseating feeling that made him want to throw up as soon as he stepped through the front gates.

fortunately he managed to keep his breakfast down and decided that he needed to know what that was and headed for the nearest prana signature linked to the feeling during break after he managed to sniff it out.

See Magi in particular have the ability to sense prana through one of their 5 senses like taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing, Shirou in particular is able use his nose to sniff out prana signatures which he can reinforce by reinforcing his nose.

In fact Rin once jokingly compared him to a bloodhound when he demonstrated this to her.

When Shirou managed to find the source of the disturbance he was greeted to an invisible array inscribed behind the 2nd year school building, deciding to use **Structural Analysis **in order to find out what the bounded field around the school was he was shocked to discover what he had found.

From the various bits and pieces of information he gleamed from the sigil he managed to roughly guess that the what was set up at the school was a containment type bounded field called **Blood Fort Andromeda: Blood seal, Blood Temple, **which to Shirou's surprise is a B rank Anti-army noble phantasm designed to trap its victims and drain them of their Od, once they lost a specific amount the victims are then melted them down into blood which is then absorbed by the user and converted into mana.

Based on the fact that the field is a noble phantasm it was clear to the magic-user what it was for, it seemed that one of the students or teachers in the school was a master in the Holy Grail war and was planning to sacrifice the students and faculty on the school grounds in order to power-up their servant and gain an advantage in the conflict.

As both a student at this school who has friends and family here and a hero of justice (in-training) Shirou Emiya could not let this stand so he decided to do everything in his power to prevent the bounded field from being activated and he knew just how to do it.

It was when he used **Structural Analysis** that he saw a flaw in the construction of the field as it seemed that it needed to have a set number of sigils created around the area of effect in order to be used at full power, so if he managed to destroy as many of them as he could he would be able to stall the **Blood Fort **long enough for he or Rin to find the master responsible get him to stop the field by any means nessesary.

So with that settled Shirou proceeded to Trace one of his special rune blades and drive the hilt into the sigil as the magical array strangle got both burned and frozen at the same time.

What shirou used was one of his first offensive mystic codes called a **IceFire blade**, a blade with the Runes Sowilo, Perthro, and Isa etched into the metal in order to surround the blade with conflicting forces of Fire and ice when prana is fed into the letters that strangely don't cancel each over out.

He also made bladed arrows embodying Earth, Water, Wind, Ice, Lightning, and Fire that he wanted to shoot from a bow at long-range, but unfortunately couldn't find a bow strong enough to withstand the recoil of firing a sharpened lump of materialized metal so he had to make due with using them as mid-range projectiles.

When the sigil collapsed from the damage it was receiving Shirou dismissed his weapon and proceeded to find the next sigil before the bell rang and was forced to wait till lunchtime before starting again when he found one near the side entrance.

After that was taken care off he decided to head for the next one he could sniff out which was on the roof of the 2nd year school building, as he climbed the stairs he was greeted with the scent of a bounded field that had the School idol Tohsaka Rin's hands all over it.

It was then that Shirou remembered that he was supposed to meet the black haired girl on the roof when lunch started in order to discuss details about the war, deciding he might as well face the music he opened the door to the roof and was greeted with the sight of an irritated magus in twin pony tails telling him that he was late.

Seeing that he had a perfectly good reason why he didn't show up until now Shirou told Rin about what he found out about the bounded field and that he had been going around campus destroying the fields sigils in order to stall its activation.

At first the master of Archer was surprised that Shirou managed to find out so much about the bounded field set around the school in so little time and was already doing what he could to slow down the bounded field from activating, but desided that she should had expected this from Shirou since his version of Structual analysis is practically broken.

"So how did you're summoning go, did you get the servant you wanted?" the heir of Emiya asked before noticing that she had a slight frown on her face.

At this Shirou realized that something must have happened during the summoning and decided to see if his suspicions were right "You did remember to set your clocks back 1 hour before the summoning right?"

What he was talking about was something that Ayako told him yesterday during Club practice.

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_It was a cold winter morning in that she had volunteered to take the club members out for morning practice when she met Tohsaka by the front gate a full hour before school started, when Shirou had asked Tohsaka about it after school the school idol admitted that the clocks in her house were an hour faster then normal, knowing that the peak of her magical power was at midnight the Emiya reminded Rin to set the clocks in her house back one hour before attempting the summoning._

_At first the Tsundere said that she didn't need reminding but relented after the red head reminded her about a particular curse that her families suffer, such as the ability to 'mess up at the most important times'._

_So after school was over Rin gone back home and adjusted the clocks in her house to be one hour behind, with that done she begun the summoning ritual._

_The ritual circle wasn't very complex as was a standard 5-point star representing her affinity with all five elements but what it lacked in complexity it made up for it in the fact that the circle was made of gems that were melted down._

_It also had a few of her __**Rune gems **__for added power that she made a few months ago since she wanted to save her normal stash of gems that she filled with prana since her father died 10 years ago for the war._

"_Bear and silver and iron, Stone for foundation and the grand duke of contracts. My great master Shveinorg for the Ancestor._

"_A wall for the descending winds. The four gates shall close and come out the crown. Let the three-forked road to the kingdom cycle."_

_"Enclose. Enclose. Enclose. Enclose. Enclose._

_Five times for each repetition._

_Just destroy the enclosed time._

_Anfang."_

_As she chanted the words necessary for activating the ritual her circuits burned as prana was being formed from the mana flowing from the leyline underneath her house and being pulled towards the circle causing a maelstrom of wind to kick up . _

_"I announce._

_Thy body shall be under my command, my fate shall be determined by thy sword._

_Follow the call of the Holy Grail. If thou wouldst obey this mind and this reason, then answer my call."_

_"I make an oath here._

_I am the one who shall become the virtue of all afterworld._

_I am the one who shall lay out the evil of all afterworld._

_Thou art Seven Heavens clad in the Three Great Words."_

_"Emerge from the ring of control, guardian of balance!"_

_As she finished the words needed to complete the ritual the wind that had been building up since she started climaxed as a large bright light erupted from the circle causing Rin to become temporarily blind._

_As her eyes got used to the unexpected lightshow she was greeted with the sight of man standing with his arms crossed, he was a yang man in his late 20s to early 30s with tanned skin, steel grey eyes and strangely to the girl pure White hair straightened up and almost looked silver from the light emanating from the ritual._

_As for what he wore these consisted of black light armor and pants covered in belts and steel plates at the soles of his shoes, he also wore a red overcoat covering his arms and his lower body with plates holding it in place on his neck and waist. _

_She also noticed that he looked surprised at seeing her, as if thinking that he was supposed to have been summoned somewhere else before closing his eyes for a few seconds before smirking and decided to address his summoned._

"_Well now it seems that I've been summoned by quite the talented magus, I take it that you are my master then?" he asked deciding to break the ice waiting for the black haired magus to bring her thoughts together before she straightened up and said._

"_Yes I am your master Rin Tohsaka, were you perhaps summoned as servant Saber?" the Tohsaka asked hoping that she got the class that she wanted, what she got however was the white haired man shaking his head in denial before he revealed his class._

"_I'm afraid not master, you see while I am one of the knight classes, I have been summoned as servant Archer in this grail war" the named servant Archer said to his master who simply slummed her arms in defeat at not getting the class that she desired._

"_Oh well at least I got something right" she said as the Archer class is one of the knight classes and traditionally posses more noble phantasms then any other servant in the grail war. She then decided that she might as well ask her servant if his summoning was okay._

_When she asked this the white haired man merely shrugged and replied "Nothing to serious master as I was summoned at full strength, why don't you look at my stats and see for yourself"_

_Deciding that she might as well heed her servants advice Tohsaka Rin closed her eyes and activated the __**Masters perception **__and checked her servants stats, it was then that she noticed a few oddities about her servant. _

_Archers physical stats were solid C's for Strength, Endurance, and agility which was strange as Archers fight mainly in mid to long range fights meaning that her servant have experience fighting up close, the rest was pretty straight forward with Mana being B, luck E and strangely a question mark where noble phantasms are._

_As for his class skills they were pretty decent with him having B rank independent action and D rank magic resistance, she then looked at his personal skills but found that they were blank but decided to shrug it as they would probably fill in as she learns more about her servant._

"_Well it looks like your stats are okay Archer but there is something I'm curious about, namely your true name since I didn't use a catalyst linked to you specifically" Tohsaka-san asked as she needed this info to plan out her strategies if it turned out that her servant was a well known hero whose strengths and weaknesses were recorded._

_However what she got was unexpected as he gave Rin his answer._

"_WHAAAT?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CANT REMEMBER, ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE FUN OF ME?!" the black haired magus shouted which was out of character for her._

_Archer enjoying the little outburst his master had decided to elaborate more "What I mean master is that I have no idea about any facts that have happened in my legend, fortunately I don't seem to be missing anything important like my name and where I come from but anything more then that draws a blank in my head like trying to read a book in English if you can only read Japanese, oh and don't try and ask me for my true name as a doubt you would find anything"_

"_Oh? And why is that?" Rin dangerously said as she had the sneaking suspicion that her servant was hiding something from her, but decided to humor him and let him explain his reasons. With his masters blessings Archer decided to continue._

"_The reason I doubt you would find any records or legends about me if I tell you my name is that they don't exist yet" the white haired man admitted letting the info sink into Rin's brain before she realized what he means._

"_You're a heroic spirit from the future?" Rin asked surprised, as she didn't think it was possible as their hasn't been a new hero to enter the throne since the turn of the 20__th__ century and the advancement of modern weaponry, but then she realized that Archers explanation had some truth to it as the throne of heroes exists outside time and space so it is possible that it contains heroes from the future as well as the past. _

_Hell for all she knew he may have come from a distant future in which Earth was invaded by Aliens that were immune to guns and missiles leaving humanity to fight back with earlier forms of weaponry._

"_Correct" Archer said praising her master for her insight before continuing, "because I existed in the future any records or myths detailing my deeds are not written in this time because they haven't happened yet."_

"_Because heroic spirits are powered and influenced by their legend when they are summoned by the grail I wasn't summoned with them because my particular legend hasn't been written yet." The servant of the bow said before continuing._

"_However I do know one thing for sure and that is you are an excellent master Rin, the mire fact that my stats are like this despite the fact that I don't have a legend to give me a power boost is proof of that."_

_After hearing this Rin blushed at being praised for her abilities as a magus before quickly straightening herself out, as it was inelegant for a member of the Tohsaka family._

"_Well I suppose there is some good to be salvaged from this situation, since you don't have a legend yet the other masters and servants won't be able to figure out your true name" Rin said before looking at the time and realized that it was getting late and since it was a school night it would affect her studies._

_Besides she already had trouble waking up fully during the mornings, she didn't need to add lack of sleep to that list._

_With that sorted she told Archer that she was going to bed and told him to go into spirit form for now so she can rest her circuits as she had pushed them in order to summon her servant. _

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The next morning was okay but it also served as a way for Rin to find out two important facts about her servant, first was that when she came down she found that her living room was spotless as if the servant had been up all night cleaning her house.

Second was that he made great tea as he not only brewed it perfectly but he somehow knew the brand she liked (his pancakes weren't bad either) in fact if she didn't know it already she could have swore that his class was **Butler **instead of Archer.

From there she had Archer follow her to school in spirit form in the unlikely case that one of the other masters attacked her in broad daylight however when she got to the front gates she felt a slight case of nausea like the entire school had less air then the rest of the world.

Her senses as a magus instantly told her that it was a bounded field and a powerful one at that (Archer confirmed her theory as he was more sensitive to these type of things being a spirit and all) so after some careful analysis of one of the focal points of the field she managed to get a rough estimate of the field.

It seemed that the bounded field was a containment type that was designed to trap its victims and then melt them down into blood in order to be absorbed by its user, based on this fact it was easy to deduce that it was a servants doing as the bounded field was way too powerful for a magus of the modern era to achieve.

Which means that there was another master or two attending Homurahara high and he/she was planning to sacrifice the whole school in order to power their servant, as both a master in the holy grail war and the second owner of Fuyuki charged with protecting the secrecy of mage craft she cannot allow this to happen.

Which was why she told Archer that she was planning to meet her associate at school in order exchange information and work together in order to delay the fields activation by destroying sigils scattered around campus and hopefully give them enough time to find the rogue servants master and force him/her to disable the field.

Archer of course was confused as to the identity of this mysterious benefactor of Rin when she headed for the rooftop of the 2nd year school building and decided to set up a bounded field in order to keep the mundane students and teachers away so that they can have their conversation in private.

It was 10 minutes after the agreed upon time for the mysterious student to meet her when she felt her field being breeched meaning that the idiot had finally decided to show up.

So it was unexpected for her to notice Archer stare at Emiya Shirou in shock as he opened the door leading to the roof, when she told him that he was late he apologized saying that he noticed that there was a bounded field around the school grounds this morning and he had been using his spare time outside club activities destroying the sigils around campus necessary to stall the fields activation.

This served to calm Rin down as she was glad he was already doing what he could to foil the hidden master at the school rather then waste time like she thought he was.

Shirou then proceeded to ask if Rin's summoning went well while asking if she remembered to set her clocks back before attempting the ritual "Of course I did Emiya what kind of idiot do you think I am."

"The kind who tends to mess up at the most important times when she's not paying attention such as when the '**Rune gem incident' **happened" the boy deadpanned much to Rin's embarrassment.

"Th..Th.. That was an accident and I made sure to be extra careful when modifying my artificial gems since then, besides you didn't suffer any permanent injuries thanks to Kirei" Rin said while Archer made a snicker at his master's expense.

This slight chuckle seemed to catch Rin's eye as she eyed the servant's invisible form suspiciously while he whistled innocently, this seemed suspicious to Shirou as he saw her looking at no one visible to his eyes "Tohsaka-san, who is it that you are talking to"

This seemed to snap Rin out of what she was doing as she concentrated on Shirou "I was talking to my smartass servant Emiya-kun he's in spirit form right now so its natural you can't see him" she then turned to her invisible familiar and said "Archer you can materialize now"

As if on cue a brown tanned man with White hair wearing black armor and a red overcoat appeared next to the black haired magus, his face natural as it was hard to tell what he was thinking at the moment.

For Shirou in particular it was the first time he had come face to face with a heroic spirit (despite being degraded in order to fit into the class containers provided by the grail) but he could already tell that the man in front of him as an existence far above regular humans and not to be trifled with, however there was also something about the servant eying him that set him on edge.

It was the first time that they had ever met, but Shirou could already tell right away that if the two of them were to talk with each over they will not get along at all, it was the same kind of feeling he got from Kotomine but different, while the priest exuded a feeling a malice that set the Emiya on edge the servant standing by Rin seemed to irritate him at his very core as if he was a blight to everything he stood for as a hero of justice.

But he pushed that feeling aside as he couldn't afford to antagonize a servant this early in the conflict and decided to ask Rin about him "So Rin do you know what class he is?"

At this question Rin sighed a bit and said "Unfortunately I failed to get Saber but I suppose that Archer will do since its one of the three knight classes" this had surprised Shirou as he was sure she was going to get Saber since it she was a much better magus then he was but the Emiya supposed that it was a bit of a gamble.

There were two ways to summon a servant to the grail war, the first was to use a catalyst that links to a specific heroic spirit like King Arthur or Alexander the great, however this way has a high chance of summoning a servant that was not compatible with the summoned especially since the caller would be a stereotypical magus (who are usually assholes at best).

The other way was not to use a catalyst at all and instead summon a hero that possesses similar traits to the master, however heroes called this way have a high change of being low to average heroic spirits since the high tear heroes usually have personalities incompatible with the modern era.

The reason that Rin didn't use a catalyst in her summoning ritual is because while she had regained her families land thanks to Shirou, she lacked the necessary connections her father forged during his time that allowed him to procure rare artifacts necessary for potential summoning catalysts.

Which was why she used the huge red gem she inherited from her father after decoding his will, too bad her efforts landed her with a nameless Archer who doesn't even remember who he was in life.

But despite this fact her summoning of the 6th of the 7 classes needed to start the Holy Grail war meant that if Shirou wanted to claim the last spot by summoning Saber he needed to do it **tonight**.

Fortunately he had a suitable catalyst in his body in order to call the final servant.

"Well Rin I'd like to stay but think that I should get going, I need to check that the equipment in the Archery club is in working order before this afternoon so if you have something to say then please say it now" Shirou said as he waved Rin goodbye before he stopped as if he had forgotten something important.

"What is it Emiya-kun?" Rin questioned as she saw him walk towards the edge of the rooftop and kneeled down placing his hand on the floor, she was then shocked as he traced one of his projected weapons that were covered in three runes and watched astonished along with her servant as both fire and frost covered the blade from head to toe and plunged it to the floor, only to blink as a array appeared where he struck before dissipating.

"Whew, almost forgot about that one for a sec" the Emiya said before turning to the red clad servant and his master who were to him sporting weird faces "Oh that was just one of the sigils I managed to sniff out around campus, I came up here to destroy it when I remembered that I was supposed to meet you up here, sorry about that Tohsaka-san"

As he finished apologizing Rin could only say "I….see well then good work Emiya-kun" as she realized that there was a sigil up here on the roof and neither her or Archer managed to sense it at all, but then again she guessed she should have expected this from Mr bloodhound.

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As Archer Watched the boy named Shirou exit the roof after dispatching the sigil on the roof his mind went into overdrive as to what he should do next.

While it was true that he was a heroic spirit that came from the Future like he told Rin there were a couple of things that he couldn't tell his master under any circumstances, first was that he never lost his memory from the summoning since it went off without a hitch meaning that he knew exactly who he was.

The second thing was that he was not a proper heroic spirit at all but was instead a Counter Guardian, a person who made a deal with the collective spirit of humanity ALAYA to safeguard humanities survival for eternity after their death in exchange for power.

While it seems not bad on paper the reality was much worse, as the contracted sucker was summoned across time and space to conflicts that would threaten humanity and is forced to deal with the threat by any means necessary.

Archer had originally sold his soul in order to gain enough speed to reach a nuclear reactor in time before a meltdown happened and threaten the lives of everyone living nearby.

From there he used his new powers to do what ever he could to stop a conflict from spiraling out of control, only to be branded as the cause of the war by the real mastermind who used him a scapegoat and was executed.

From there things went from bad to worse as after he died he was summoned by ALAYA as part of their agreement to conflict after conflict and was forced to watch himself slaughter people whether they were innocent or guilty, this had continued for centuries until the counter guardian decided he had enough and made a desperate plan to kill his past self and hopefully cause a big enough paradox that would erase himself for good.

This plan was set in motion when he felt himself being summoned by one of the many versions of Tohsaka Rin across the multiverse, as a counter guardian he remembered events that happened every time that he was summoned which was a lot due to the existence of parallel dimensions.

In these different versions of the grail war one Tohsaka Rin would try to summon a servant of the Saber class but always failed because of two things, first was that she didn't have a proper catalyst instead used her fathers necklace, the second mistake was that all the clocks in her house were an hour fast so she summoned an hour early when her magic was at its peak though this was somewhat understandable since most the clocks in her home were of western design and Japan doesn't use Daylight savings time like they do in the west.

The point was that these mistakes meant that when Archer was summoned in those alternative universes he was summoned above Rin's house instead of in front of her and his stats were slightly weaker then normal.

So it came as a surprise to him when not only was he summoned in front of Rin like normal, but he also was at full power now as his strength stat was a rank higher then his previous summons, of course since Rin managed to do the summoning right he decided not to criticize her abilities as a master so that she wouldn't waste a command seal this early in the war.

Of course there were other shocks in store for the counter guardian as he noticed a couple of strange gems on a workbench in his masters workshop, when he asked Rin about it she explained that they were the result of her attempt to combine regular Jewel craft with Runecraft which surprised Archer as he never remembered his version of Rin ever learning Runes let alone combine them with her families jewels.

Of course this left him an a pickle because since Rin managed to do the summoning ritual properly this time he couldn't use the same amnesia excuse as before so he came up with an explanation the next morning with him being a future heroic spirit that wasn't recorded in legend yet and had affected his memory as a result, it was a half assessed explanation he admitted which was surprising for him as Rin seemed to believe it.

When she left for school half an hour later Rin felt the bounded field that was set up around the school and after getting confirmation from Archer that it was the work of a servant she decided to meet her associate on the roof during lunch which seemed to leave Archer curious as to the identity of Rin's mysterious ally as this didn't happen at all in his timeline of the Grail War.

So of course Counter Guardian Emiya was understandably stunned speechless when his past self walked through that door leading to the roof and apologized to Rin since he was busy taking out the bounded field sigils around the school, of course this wouldn't have set Archers alarms off as there were plenty of worlds out in the multverse in which Rin Tohsaka and his past self found out about each over before the 5th war started oh no it was Shirou's circuits that were the problem.

From what the servant could tell from his senses not only were they open but there were so many of them that they ranged in the thousands, far above the 27 normal-quality circuits that he was supposed to have had based on what the guardian could tell they were similar to when he used to turn his nerves into makeshift circuits back before the Grail War started which could only mean one thing.

His idiotic past self had not only found away to turn his nerves into permanent circuits without killing himself over and over, but there were so many of them now that they equaled hundreds of high quality circuits which gave him a level of prana that rivaled most Dead Apostle Ancestors, all without turning himself into a cripple in the process.

And if that wasn't bad enough it seemed that his past self had learned how to use Tracing earlier then normal since he used a magical fire and ice sword to destroy the sigil that Rin didn't detect, based on these facts it was clear that this version of Shirou Emiya was not the one he was looking for meaning that killing him will not cause the paradox he wanted as the teen was not his true past self.

Which means that for now he would play the role of Rin's servant and keep an eye on this version of Shirou Emiya, however if he still had that stupid dream of becoming a hero of Justice then in order to spare him the pain of watching his ideal betray him Archer will do what ever he can to fix it.

Even if it meant turning the red head into a human pincushion after taking a page out of Gilgamesh's book and shooting dozens of blades at his past self.

Of course that last part was probably his jealousy of this version of Emiya Shirou acting up since the idiot managed to acquire a level of power that he never even dreamed in his life but seriously can you blame the guy.

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Shinji Matou was one of a group of stereotypical playboy's that showed up at almost every co-ed school in the country, he had exotic blue hair, good looks, excellent grades and was a member of the Archery club making a target for the affections of many women at Homurahara High School.

However that was only his public face as he was actually an arrogant, prideful jerk who tended to flaunt his family name everywhere in order to make himself feel important then he actually was and had a massive inferiority/superiority complex against those who were better then him both physically and academically.

This had gotten so bad that he tended to frequently beat his little sister Sakura up (and other unsavory things) in order to let out his frustrations, which predictably earned him a knuckle sandwich from his former friend Shirou Emiya a year ago.

However that wasn't important right now as he was waiting in the woods behind the school after Archery in order to meet up with his associate in order to hear her report about a certain task he ordered to perform.

Sure enough he was greeted with the sight of a tall woman with long flowing purple hair that was up to her ankles, a voluptuous body covered in tight black clothing with thigh high boots, as well as a blindfold covering her eyes, all in all she was the epitome of what a man would want in a woman.

However this beauty had fangs as she was actually a powerful heroic spirit summoned for the 5th Holy Grail war as servant Rider and was currently serving as Shinji's servant after he coerced her previous master to hand over control of Rider to him via the **Book of false Attendant **however there was a snag in his brilliant plan.

Originally the Matou's were a powerful magus family from Russia however their descendants started to loose circuits after they moved to Japan, which meant that by Shinji's generation he didn't have any magic circuits at all, which meant that he was unable to supply Rider with the necessary prana to fight let alone remain in the physical plane.

Which was why the blue head had ordered his servant to attack innocents in the city in order to feed on their Odic reserves, as well as have her set up a bounded field around the school so that the servant can drain energy from multiple people at once and get revenge on the idiots who mocked him at the same time, which meant that he had upgraded from a jerk into a complete monster in just a few days.

However things didn't seem to have been going his way at all as **Someone **had been destroying the sigils that Rider had set up around campus, meaning that it would take longer to set **Blood Fort Andromeda **if this kept up, which was why he sent the servant out earlier during school in order to find out who was destroying those sigils so Shinji can sick Rider on them and get back to setting the Bounded field up.

Which was why he was waiting in the forest behind the school as he needed to do this away from prying eyes "Well Rider did you find out who it was yet?" Shinji asked which got a reply from his servant as she nodded her head and gave her report.

"Yes master I did, while I was checking on the locations where the sigils were located I noticed someone approaching one of the arrays while sniffing the air like he had sensed it with his nose, he then used some kind of thaumaturgy to materialize a sword out of nowhere and destroy the sigil, since I was far away at the time in order to avoid detection I couldn't get a good glimpse at who it was" Rider reported as Shinji went into thought about what she was talking about.

Based on what she told him this mysterious magus must have used projection as it was the only form of mage craft he knew that allowed a magus to materialize objects out of thin air, which made him wonder what kind of magus would use such a useless art like Gradation air "did you at least see any distinct features about him?" he asked irritably as he needed any info he could squeeze out of Riders report.

"Actually 'master' there was something, while I couldn't see his face it did happen to notice that he had red hair" this new info froze Shinji in his tracks as he knew only one person he knew that had red hair.

Shirou Emiya, his 'former friend from middle school, captain of the Archery club that he attends and the person his sister Sakura visits every morning to make breakfast for him, he would have forbidden her from going over there a long time ago but his grandfather wanted her to continue for whatever reason, but based on what he heard just now there was definably a reason for that.

That insufferable red-head was a magus all along and Shinji never even realized it from the time that they knew each over, of course this probably explained why he was hanging around with Tohsaka since she was the second owner but that didn't make him feel any better, in fact it made him hate the red-head more then before.

Which was why he was seething with rage at the thought of a 1st generation scum like Emiya having circuits when he was the heir of Matou, after making his mind up on what to do next Shinji addressed his servant "Rider, I have a very important task for you"

As the servant of the mount looked to her temporary master through that blindfold as if she could still see through it she waited for him to give his order "I want you to go to Emiya's house find that 3rd rate hack and kill him but make sure its slow and painful"

As he saw dematerialize into spirit form to travel incognito the prideful idiot let his mind wander of the sort of things Rider would do to the red-head, afterall what were the chances that Emiya would even stand a chance against a servant.

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"Okay time to get to work" Shirou Emiya said as he entered the tool shed that served as his work shop in order start the summoning ritual so he can call the servant Saber and compete in the Holy Grail War even though he had no interest in the prize at all.

Which was why he was planning to give Tohsaka his wish since all she wants is to reach Akasha the root of all knowledge, as he went deeper into the shed he turned his eyes towards a half faded out ritual circle that had been laying there since when he was still living with Kiritsugu.

When he had shown it to Rin some time ago she was curious as to what it was doing here, as it was a formal craft array designed to draw mana from the air and nearby leylines for a magus to use for whatever purposes however on further inspection she found that it could be also used as a summoning circle if the caster wanted.

After remembering this Shirou was glad that he didn't have to waste time drawing a circle to summon his servant as there was already one here for him to use, with that out the way he picked up a Stoll that was sitting in the corner and placed it on the opposite end of the circle near the wall.

He then visualized a dozen of his circuits in the form of thousands of golden strands before grabbing a few of them and begun the preparations to trace the catalyst he needed for the ritual.

"Trace on" he whispered as he visualized his mental trigger which was the barrel of a gun being pulled back and releasing as he pulled the trigger, he then brought up the image of a gold and blue scabbard and willed it into existence. Next thing he knew he was holding a traced copy of the scabbard in his hands.

The thing in his hands was a replica of **Avalon: the ever-distant utopia** an EX ranked noble phantasm and the scabbard belonging to King Arthur of Camalot which he lost before the battle of Camlann, as well as the catalyst he was going to use to summon the King of knights for the war.

Normally the traced weapons he makes suffer a penalty in quality do to him not being able to completely grasp the conceptual make-up of the originals however because the original scabbard had been stuck in his body for 10 years his body had managed to memorize the complete blueprint of the scabbard.

Of course that didn't mean that he could use it since it belonged to the king of knights in the first place but regardless of this fact it was still the greatest achievement he was able to make with his magecraft. As he laid the hollowed Scabbard onto the makeshift pedestal he backed off and got out the piece of paper that had the summoning aria on it that Rin gave him in order to memorize it one more time.

It seemed that he had made some modifications to the aria in order to make it unique for him and maximize the levels of prana he could make with his circuits, with that done he put the piece of paper back in his pocket and took out his phone so he could check the time.

It was 10:23 pm at night meaning that it was still too early to summon Saber as it was not yet the right time when his magic was at his peak so he decided to wait it out until it was time for him to summon.

Suddenly he heard the ringing of a bell that was attached to the bounded field his father set up that was designed to detect enemies that had hostile intent while at the same time cursing his luck at the timing of such a predicament.

As he ran outside the tool shed into the courtyard he looked around the courtyard for any sign of the intruder, suddenly he felt his instincts go into overdrive as he ungraciously roll on the ground in order to dodge a jiggered nail weapon on a chain that was aimed for his neck.

As he quickly got back up he looked towards the source of the attack only to meet a purple haired woman in skimpy clothes while wearing a blindfold standing on his roof and reeling back the nail weapon she had aimed at Shirou.

"I'm surprised you were able to dodge that magus, not many people in this day and age are able to dodge a weapon they didn't know was coming" the female killer said as she jumped of the roof in order to land a few meters away from the red-head.

"And you are?" Shirou said as he had a sneaking suspicion on who this person was since he could smell the abnormal levels of prana emanating from her "normally I wouldn't answer that question but since I have to kill you I might as well inform you so you may call me Rider"

At hearing this Shirou clicked his teeth in frustration at having his suspicions confirmed, afterall what were the odds that you would come face to face with a heroic spirit turned servant before you even summoned a servant of your own, however that also begs the question as to what she was doing here in the first place when he suddenly had an idea.

When he used his magi senses to tell what kind of servant she was he was assaulted with a number of fragrances that smelt suspiciously like snakes, blood, and a hint of perfume. However what was important was that Shirou had encountered these scents before when he was destroying the bounded field sigils at school that could mean one thing.

"Before we start servant I just want to ask you something" Shirou asked which caused Rider be slightly surprised as the person before her managed to find out that she was a servant before saying "Very well what is it that you want to ask"

At this Shirou took a deep breath and said, "That bounded field located at the school, that was your doing wasn't it" which caused Rider to stiffen as he had already guessed that she had something to do with it, seeing no reason to keep her intensions hidden the servant decided to come clean.

"Indeed you are correct magus, I set up the bounded field at the school where you go to because my 'master' cannot provide me with the necessary prana needed to remain materialized, so I was ordered to seek out 'alternative' sources of energy" at this point there was no point in hiding anything since the person in front of her was going to die soon.

As much as she hated her current master the **Book of false Attendant **that was made using her true masters command seals meant that she had to follow Shinji's orders regardless of whether she wanted to do them or not, so even if she wanted to let the boy go she couldn't.

When Shirou listened to Riders explanation it all made sense to him what he needed to do now, right now there were still a few minutes until his magic was at his peak so if he can hold out long enough to summon Saber then they should be able to push Rider back and make her retreat.

Besides if there was any time to test out the results of his training this was it as with the path he had chosen as a hero of justice he would probably face off against strange and powerful adversaries that would make any lesser man pee his pants, and what better opponent to face then a heroic spirit summoned by the Holy Grail.

Of course being a servant that she is meant that her abilities were more then thirty times that of a normal man, meaning that if Shirou was to stand a chance against her then he needed to pull out all the stops right from the start, he just hoped that his body would be able to handle the strain.

With that settled Shirou went into a stance and traced two **IceFire **rune blades ready to take Rider on "Actually Rider there is something I want to ask you before we begin, if I manage to defeat you will the bounded field around the school disappear as well"

When she saw Shirou go into a stance like he was planning to fight her Rider was stunned that a human magi like her target would even think of fighting a servant head on, however when he asked that question about her noble phantasm the servant of the mount decided to answer " yes, the **Blood Fort Andromeda **is a noble phantasm linked to my legend meaning that if I go it goes as well, however that wont happen" before throwing her nail weapon at Shirou's vitals intending to end his life.

At this Shirou only smiled and said "we'll see" before parrying her attack with his **Icefire **blades and proceeded to activate as many golden strands symbolizing his many nerve circuits as possible and flooded his legs with prana, before releasing it in a similar manner to a rocket boot that made Shirou _leap _at his opponent with his swords aimed to strike her down.

And so with this conflict the 5th Holy Grail war had officially begun.

(To be continued)

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**Hello viewer's epicgamer484 here, I just want to thank all you viewers who decided to review and give me comments on which servants should be summoned, also for those of you that will be worries that Shirou will be too overpowered don't worry because with the range of servants that I have chosen for the other masters he's going to need to be overpowered if he is to get out of the war alive.**

**Well that all I have to say for now folks so please review and see you next time.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate stay night or any of the characters featured in this fanfiction, as they are the property of Type moon. Besides if I did then all of this would be canon.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Circuit Network chapter 5**

Deep within the city of Fuyuki City or more specifically the Japanese residential area Miyamachou a great battle was being waged between two individual's that far surpassed the limits of human ability, this battle was taking place in the backyard of the Emiya household owned by the 17-year-old high school student Shirou Emiya.

If anyone other then the two combatants were to stumble across the brawl then they would think that they were looking at a scene from either a high budget action movie or an anime, though then again they would realistically stunt there in shock as their minds tried to process what they were witnessing.

One of the combatants was a purple haired beauty wearing a black skintight outfit wielding twin nails attached to a chain that was connected to each over, however the strange bit was that she had a full blindfold over her eyes and yet she continued to stab, kick and move as if she could see just fine despite the blindfold covering her vision.

This person was Rider, a heroic spirit summoned into a servant container by a master in order to compete for the Holy Grail was currently trying to take the life of her opponent despite her inability to do so, based on these results it would be obvious to an outside observer if they were witnessing the fight to think that she was fighting another servant due to his ability to hold his own against her.

However the truth would be harder to accept, as he wasn't a servant but a human magus, which seemed to confuse the servant immensely as she didn't think that there were any people in the modern era capable of fighting a servant despite her weakened state.

Said miraculous human was a 17 year old male with red hair and amber colored eyes while wearing a blue and white long sleeve shirt and blue jeans, this man was Shirou Emiya and right now he was using a pair of swords to parry each of Riders attacks while managing to slash, burn and freeze her at the same time.

The first sword he was currently using was a short sword resembling a gladius with the runes Sowilo, Perthro and Isa carved into the metal in order to give the sword the properties of both fire and ice that both burn and freeze its enemies at the same time.

The second weapon was longer then the first and had five runes carved in instead of three which were a reversed Sowilo, Uruz, Raidho, Tiwaz, and Raidho again, when these letters combine they set the sword ablaze as well as increasing the users strength and speed, its name was **Surtr** a weapon based on a fire giant of Norse mythology of the same name.

With these weapons combined the young man managed to use them in conjunction with his personal fighting style that he had developed after sparring with Fuji-nee for so many years, it was an insane fighting style that he had developed in conjunction with his **Prana Burst **ability in which he would leave fake openings in his guard so that his opponent would go for them, then he would use **Prana burst **to triple his speed in an instant so that the enemy wouldn't have time to mount a proper defense.

Of course there was a downside to this strategy as the fake openings type was developed against enemies that were far stronger then he was when he wasn't using **Prana Burst **and had to be less skilled then him otherwise he would suffer a serious injury since he leaves actual openings in his guard meaning that it was more affective against monstrous familiars and dead apostles.

For someone like Rider though he had to modify his fighting style somewhat since she was obviously more skilled then him being a heroic spirit and all which is what his **Structural Analysis **came in.

As part of his specific brand of Projection magic that he had developed over the past 1 ½ years he was able to scan the personal history of a weapon not only during its past but also its present.

He had first discovered this when he had sparred against Fuji-nee one time when she wielded Torashinai against him, in a bit of panicked frenzy Shirou though it was a good idea to scan her sword while she was wielding it in order get some ideas on how she would use it, needless to say the results were fruitful as he was able to predict what his guardian was going to do before she even knew it.

This new facet of his ability with tracing allowed him to use his **Structural Analysis **in order to predict his opponents moves without using experience to tell what they were going to do, a sort ofFake** eye of the mind **as it were.

Of course his abilities with this new insight were still lacking which was why he had been practicing using **Structural Analysis **in order to read his opponents moves for the past year until it was basically second nature to him.

This new fighting style of his deemed to have been affective since he was able to start catching up to Taiga in winning their spars and was also doing alright against Rider as he used **Prana Burst** to multiply his abilities so that his body could keep up him reading the servants attack.

Which proved to have been affective as she was covered in burn marks and frost bite from where he was able to counter the servants attacks, of course Shirou had a few share of injuries himself thanks to the servants B rank agility who seemed to be pleased as they would undoubtedly slow him down somewhat.

However unknown to the servant these injuries only served to make Shirou stronger thanks to a special set of runes he had Rin tattoo to his back in order to give him an edge in a fight.

It was a special rune sequence using a total of 22 letters tattooed along the spinal column in order to improve Shirou's physical abilities in proportion to the amount of damage he receives, this of course includes the built up body heat generated by his circuits allowing him to use his many nerve circuits longer then before and increases his general output since his body can now handle the strain better then before (within reason of course).

This meant that as long as Shirou doesn't run out of Od or mana to use he could potentially grow stronger over time of a fight drags out, of course this isn't without its drawbacks as the runes are constantly active whenever he is in a fight meaning that he can't use the maximum amount of prana he can produce since some of it is channeled into his runes.

Which proved to be a huge boon to his abilities since as he was facing against a heroic spirit he needed all he advantages he could get, deciding that she should change tactics Rider broke out of the deadlock she had with the redhead and backed away, intending to use her nails as mid-range weapons.

However Shirou was ready for this "trace on" he said as the hammer in his mind was pulled back activating dozens of his circuits in the process allowing about ten of his water elemental arrows behind him to be traced into existence as well as another ten for wind so that he could fight Rider at mid-range as well.

He chose Water and wind for several reasons, first his wind arrows were faster then his other projectiles due to their properties negating the wind resistance as the travel through the air, while water on the other hand is very effective against spiritual beings like servants hence why he chose these two instead of his more destructive arrows.

Plus there was also the fact that they had the unlikely chance of causing collateral damage unlike his other elemental projectiles, he may not mind fixing the damage but it would also take very good explanations for Sakura and Fuji-nee as to why there were multiple holes in his yard.

"Trigger off" he said as he stopped making copies and proceeded to aim a couple at Rider who froze at the unexpected ability of her target before he let the hammer go and fired one wind to hit and stagger her before she can dodge and a water arrow to finish her off.

However Rider once again proved just why she was accepted into the throne of heroes in the first place as she used the nails on her chain weapon to deflect the first arrow and dodged the second, despite her magic resistance being able to negate spells below C rank the arrows Shirou were firing were both physical and magical in nature which would allow them to bypass her protection.

Then there was the fact that her endurance was at a very low E rank so despite the weak nature of Shirou's attack his water arrow would do some damage since it is affective against spiritual beings like her.

Seeing that his first barrage didn't work the faker decided to increase the rate of fire and launched the rest of his traced arrows at her only for Rider to go into a sprint in order to dodge Shirou's fire, however that worked just ine for him as the arrows were meant to lure Rider towards him in order to fight her up close since he seemed to have the advantage in close range combat.

If their fighting styles were to have a comparison then Shirou's would be like a hawk that uses its agility to maneuver around its prey in order to study its opponent and find an opening, then uses its wings to hit its pray in order to stagger it before uses its sharp beak and claws to go in for the kill.

Rider on the other hand is more like a snake that studies its opponent from a distance but uses its spring like body to leap at its opponent and strike at their defensives before they have a chance to react, so even though the snake is slightly faster then its prey the hawk is able to predict the reptiles attack and move out the way before its venom could affect it in any way.

Which was why Shirou sidestepped Rider thrusting her nails towards Shirou's heart and used his sword to attack her from the side, only for her to trap the weapon between her chains forcing him to let go of it before letting it disperse back into prana.

That was 35th time Rider managed to destroy his traced weapons, after all with her C ranked strength that makes her thirty times stronger then the average human meant that his projections only last about 2 or 3 hits before they break and he has to trace another pair.

Shirou's tracing uses about 10 units of prana every time he has to trace sword due to his unique element and origin being **Sword, **meaning that just used up about 350 units of prana necessary to trace the weapons needed to fight Rider and since he dual wields then he has to use an extra 350 units tracing another sword for the other hand, meaning that from the beginning since his fight with Rider he had used up 700 units of prana.

Plus there were the 1000 units he needed to match the servant physically with **prana burst**, as well as an additional 100 every minute needed to keep his injury/strength rune craft array tattooed on his back activated meaning that he had used up a grand total of 2100 units of prana since the fight began.

And yet he still hadn't used up more then a 5th of his total reserves which after spending every night making a new nerve circuit since he started high school, which meant that he has a total out put of over 18000 units of prana if he pulls out the stops.

Seeing that he needed another of his **Icefire **blades in order block Riders kick he let the hammer on the gun barrel be pulled back before another of his handmade mystic codes materialized in his hand, which was just in time as the superhuman woman would have sent him flying and broke his ribs if he was a second late.

As Rider and Shirou backed away from each over in order to catch their breaths the two of them eyed each over while going over the info they had just learned from their fight even though it only lasted a few minutes.

The Faker was in awe at the abilities that his opponent displayed but quickly got over it as she was a heroic spirit after all and was expected from someone whose skill allowed them to ascend into semi-Devine entities. At the moment he was barely able to keep up with her despite the odds stacked he stacked in his favor but other then that they were pretty evenly matched.

Rider on the other hand was amazed that a human magus from this era was able to not only keep up her and not be reduced to bloody fertilizer but was displaying skill that wouldn't have been out of place in her era during the age of heroes, in fact if her 'master' had been here to see this then he would have peed his pants in fright at the thought of fighting this monster of a magus.

However despite all that Rider knew after seeing his abilities first hand that the person in front of him was too dangerous to be left alive and it was not because Shinji ordered her to do it but something she saw on his hand that was revealed when the bandages covering his appendages came apart.

On his revealed hand was a sword design that looked suspiciously like a command seal except that they were faded out. Meaning that the person in front of him was chosen as a master in the grail war and if that wasn't bad enough then there was the fact that the only servant that wasn't summoned yet was Saber.

In other words the combination of the strongest class of the seven powered by this monster of a master would make them potentially the most powerful opponents in the war, now Rider of course didn't have any desire for the Holy Grail but her masters grandfather did which was why her summoner was forced into this conflict in the first place, meaning that if she was to ensure her master's freedom from that 'monster' then she had to win.

"I must admit magus I didn't expect you to last this long against me, I didn't think there were still people in this Era capable of fighting on my level without destroying themselves, you should be proud" Rider complemented as she thought of a way to break this stalemate.

"Thank you Rider" Shirou smiled; even though the person in front of her was trying to kill him he didn't think that she was a bad person despite the amount of blood and malice he could smell from her which made him wonder who she was in life.

"Though I have to admit it fells a little strange being praised by someone trying to kill me but then again stranger things have happened to me before, I don't suppose we can talk this over like civilized people" the duel wielder asked seeing if it was possible for them to come to an understanding, he knew of course is was a fruitless endeavor since she was serious with ending his life but it never hurt to ask right?

"I'm afraid not, while I have nothing personal against you in particular I cannot disobey my masters orders so I am afraid that abide by your wishes" Rider apologized which caused Shirou to sigh.

"Well it was worth a try I guess, so how long are we going to do this?" Shirou asked as he went over his current abilities to see if he could go for another round.

At the moment he still had more then ¾ of his reserves left despite him using **Prana burst** but he had taken a bit of damage from that last bout, luckily he managed to apply some healing runes to himself to take care of most of the damage, however he was got a bit winded from that last scuffle while Rider didn't look like she was tired at all, meaning that if he had a chance to win then he needed to pull out all the stops.

Rider on the other hand was silent in her response as she was planning her next move on how she was going to succeed against Emiya, while she didn't look like it that last fight had taken quite a bit of her reserves since she had to heal the damage Shirou did with his blades, and since Shinji wasn't a proper magus he couldn't supply her with a steady supply of prana that her true master was able to provide.

Then there was the fact that her opponent's abilities were currently unknown to her meaning that she wasn't sure if that was the full extent of his abilities, and lets not forget the fact that Shirou seemed to get slightly stronger every time she manage to land a hit on him.

Every stab made him stronger, every kick made him faster and tougher, meaning that if the fight dragged on any longer then it was possible for him to break the stalemate and turn the tables against her, meaning that if she wanted to win then she needed to bring out one of her trump cards even though doing so could risk revealing her true identity.

**Blood Fort Andromeda **was out of the question since she was currently using it for the school, **Bellorophon **could work as it was powerful enough to plow through anything the red head tries but there was a possibility he would be able to dodge it with his abnormal physical abilities so that was out.

That only left one ability that she could use by process of elimination, which would definably be effective against her opponent, as humans in this day and age don't have very strong magic resistance compared to servants.

However if she chooses to use it then there was a very high chance that unleashing it would expose her identity not only to her opponent but any familiars that may be watching the conflict since the power sealed by **Breaker Gorgon **was featured heavily in her legend.

On the other hand if she didn't use it now then there there was a high chance he would get away and summon a servant of his own, meaning that if she wanted to avoid that sinario then she needed to act _Now_.

"I am afraid that this little fight of ours ends here young magus" suddenly the air was filled with a strong dose of killing intent as Rider showed just how serious she was now before moving her right hand towards her blindfold.

"Normally I would never use this so early in the holy grail war however your 'exceptional' abilities have forced me to use it, after-all it would be against my masters wishes if you were to be left alive" as the purple haired servant said Shirou's mind went into overdrive as he had an idea as what Rider was talking about.

Based on the serious of her statement there was a high possibility that she was planning on using her noble phantasm against the faker.

A noble phantasm is the symbol of a servant's power, a weapon or ability that the hero was said to have wielded in life. Such examples include legendary weapons such as King Arthur's Excalibur, Cu Chulainn's Gae Bolg, or the Kusanagi no Tsurugi wielded by Yamato Takeru. As well as abilities that they possessed in life like the invincibility gained by Siegfried after bathing in the blood of the dragon Fafnir, or the petrifying gaze of the Gorgon Medusa.

However because of these facts using a noble phantasm for a servant is risky since it could risk exposing the hero's identity to the enemy, however for some servants it was worth the risk.

And since Shirou has no idea who Rider is then he won't have any ideas on what noble phantasms she is likely to have, meaning that he would have to wait and see what it is, so he decided to prepare the **Honorable Shield of the Alphebet **to trace just in case.

As the servant grabbed the blindfold covering her eyes and ripped it off the killing intent suddenly grew more intense as the faker saw the image of a strange runic symbol on her forehead, however he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it means since he doesn't recognize the symbol from any of his studies in Rune-craft.

Suddenly Riders eyes opened to reveal pearl colored eyes that had square ovaries that seemed to draw him in as they were the most beautiful things he had ever seen and he would admired them more if he wasn't assaulted with a sudden compulsion that left paralyzed.

At first he thought that the servant had cast a sort of binding spell on him and activated as many circuits as he could handle in order to dispel it, however no matter what he tried the paralysis wouldn't go away as he had trouble moving even a little bit.

As Shirou looked towards his hands he saw that his skin as hardening as if his very skin was..turning…to…stone.

Suddenly the realization on what was happening to him hit like a sack of bricks as he recognized what was happening and flooded as much prana into his body as possible in order to dispel the enchantment that Riders eyes were doing to him.

Which seemed to work as he just barely managed to dodge the servant's attack in time and tried to move away from her gaze but had trouble moving as it was like moving through a thick swamp.

"I'm surprised that you're still able to move magus, not many people I exposed my eyes too had a high enough magic resistance to resist them" the purple haired woman said as she kicked him hard in the stomach which sent him flying.

However Shirou managed to brace himself for the impact and landed on his feet away from the servants location and mentally went over what was happening right now, even though the high amount of mana he was flowing into his body right now was managing to fight of the effects of Riders eyes he still felt an extreme amount of pressure on his body like he was wearing several kilos worth of weights.

Meaning that as long as Rider was looking at him he was slower and weaker then he was supposed to be even with **Prana Burst **enhancing his abilities above what humans could achieve.

Which was definably taking effect as trying his best just to stay alive as he was forced onto the defense in order to endure Riders relentless assault, at first he thought about going back to his fake opening style but decided against it as it seemed that the servant was fighting much better then before since she released the seal on her eyes.

Suddenly as he was thinking that Rider managed to find herself an opening and proceeded to aim one of her nails to the side of Shirou's neck as the Emiya tried his best to react in time, however it was for not as the servant managed to succeed as her nail made contact with his skin.

Only for her face to develop a slight frown as her weapon was stopped before it could dig deeper into the fakers skin, however the strange part was that there was a large clang sound like the sound a sword makes when striking a piece of metal armor.

"How strange" Rider said as she pulled back her weapon only to see that her nail was slightly damaged from the impact "It seems like I cannot piece your neck with this, in that case"

Seeing no other option at the moment Rider decided that a different approach was in order and rushed towards the retreating magus and kicked him as hard as she could that sent him flying.

Normally it was almost impossible for someone to control where they were going to land after being sent flying from an enemy's attack but Shirou managed to achieve this through some quick thinking on his part and moved his body into a specific position and let Rider's leg do the rest

Which seemed to work on his pat as he was sent crashing through the open door of his tool shed and slammed hard on the stone floor, as he laid there massaging his back from the first class flight via Air Rider he went over the information that he knew about Rider's eyes.

Which were a specific type of mutation inherit in magi called **Mystic Eyes, **which were artificial sorcery traits that were brought into being through altering the circuits present in a magi's eyes in order to produce a specific effect, such examples of these include **Mystic eyes of binding, Whisper, and combustion.**

However that was not the only way to get them as there were multiple cases of even normal people with no formal training in the mystic arts developing mystic eyes of their own, however these types tend to have either inhuman ancestry or demon hunter bloodlines like the Tohnos and Nanayas.

What Rider had was an extremely rare set called the **Mystic eyes of petrifaction, **a very powerful pair of eyes that allow her to turn anyone or anything living in her line of sight into stone, out of all the mystic eyes known to the magus association her eyes were ranked as **Jewel.**

And out of all of the heroic spirits recorded in legend that Shirou knew of there was only one in particular that allowed her to turn her enemies to stone just by looking at them, the legendary Gorgon of Greece **Medusa, **a monster that was slain by the hero Perseus who then used her severed head to turn the legendary Kraken to stone and was finally offered to the Goddess Athena as a gift.

As Rider approached the faker's downed body in order to finish him off the heir of Emiya managed to choke out while coughing "Man you really are a heroic spirit Rider, I think you just cracked a few of my ribs with that last kick"

When Rider heard this she raised an eyebrow at the person who was at her mercy" You seem to be unusually calm for someone who is about to meet his end, normally someone else in your position would be begging for their life right about now"

"Mostly because they would have already been turned to stone by your **Mystic eyes of petrifaction**, though I have to admit that for the legendary gorgon **Medusa** your legend wasn't very accurate in regards to your appearance" Shirou said which caused Rider's eyes to widen at being exposed right away even though he had only seen her eyes once.

"I see" Medusa said neutrally "so you were able to figure out my true identity, but it is a pity that you wouldn't be able to use that knowledge" normally Rider would have decided to drink Shirou's blood since she was running low on prana and he had plenty to spare of the amount she can sense was any indication, however because she was currently using her eyes to petrify him his hardened skin would make it harder to sink her teeth in so she decided to end his life right away.

After all there was no way she was just going to obey that worm Shinji to kill him slow and painfully since he didn't use a command seal.

As the gorgon raised her chain nails ready to strike the downed magus and end his life she said "Any last words?" intending to let him make peace with himself before returning his soul to Akasha.

Shirou on the other hand had another idea in mind from what Rider had in store from him and said "just a few" before opening almost all of his circuits as he could and projected a sword between Rider and himself "Dagaz, Thurisaz" he shouted as he poured as much prana as he could into the rune blade, making it dangerous, deadly, and **Broken.**

The projected weapon that he used was one of his elemental arrows that used the light element (which was a sub category of fire) in order to release a burst of light that helps to illuminate dark areas or be used as signal flares, however when Shirou floods it with much more prana then it could handle the light intensifies making the broken light arrow the equivalent of a magical flash grenade.

Which was exactly what Shirou needed as the strong burst of light illuminated the tool shed and caused Rider to cover her eyes in pain, fortunately the faker closed his eyes just before the sword exploded and since the paralyzing effect of the **Mystic eyes of petrification **wore off since Medusa was covering her eyes the faker was ready to punch the servant out of the shed with a **Prana Burst enhanced fist.**

Realizing that it would take the gorgon long to recover Shirou activated as much of his circuits as he could and poured all of the prana they produced into the summoning circle that was on the floor which caused it to come to life as the activated array came to life.

"Let fire and steel be the essence."

"Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation."

"Let red be the color I pay tribute to. Let a wall be risen against the wind that shall fall."

His body **Burned **from the strain of using all of her circuits, so much in fact that it felt that he was back in that fiery hell 10 years ago that left him an orphan and in turn caused him to meet Kiritsugu Emiya, thankfully though the Runes tattooed into his back ensured that he could endure the strain of producing over 18000 units of prana by transferring the excess body heat produced by his circuits outside his body so it doesn't melt his organs from the inside, it still hurt like hell though but if there was any feeling that Shirou Emiya was familiar with it was pain.

"Let the four cardinal gates close. Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate."

"Enclose, Enclose, Enclose, Enclose, Enclose."

"Let it be filled fivefold for every turn, simply breaking asunder with every filling."

Normally he didn't need to use this much mana to summon a servant or the fact that the Holy Grail does the summoning while the master just provides the catalyst to call the servant and the mana needed to stay in the material realm, but since he had pissed off and temporary blinded a heroic spirit that was recovering outside on his front lawn he wasn't taking any chances.

However if he had stopped to notice his work then the Emiya boy would have noticed that two silhouettes were forming in front of him instead of one.

"I Announce, Thy body shall be under my command"

"My fate shall be determined by thy sword"

"Follow the call of the Holy Grail, if thou wouldst obey this mind and this reason, then answer my call."

"Make an oath here. I shall become a sword to slay all-evil."

"I am the one to bear all-evil on my shoulders."

"Thout art seven heavens clad in the three great words."

"Appear before me now, guardian of the balance."

As he finished the last lines of his summoning aria the magical energy that had been building up since he started seemed to manifest into a maelstrom of wind and light that temporarily blinded Shirou for a few seconds before he collapsed on one knee and shut down all but a few dozen of his circuits so he he wouldn't be cooked alive from the intense heat his circuits were producing and still be able to sense his new servant.

However when he looked up he was greeted with a sight that was something he was definably not expecting.

Instead of one servant like there was supposed to be there were **Two, **and not only were they shorter then Shirou by a few inches but they looked exactly the same with blond hair and Emerald green eyes save for differences in clothes and hairstyle, not to mention the fact that they were both **female**, even though the catalyst he used was the scabbard of King Arthur who was definably male in the legends.

Then again Rider who was the gorgon Medusa was depicted in her legend as a green skinned monster with snakes for hair that could turn people to stone, however there had to be a limit to how much a heroes legend differs from the real thing if they couldn't get something basic like their gender right.

The first servant on his right was dressed in a royal blue dress with silver armor covering her arms, chest, hips, and legs with her blonde hair tied in a bun shaped like a lions main. She also had an air around her that just spoke royalty to Shirou that was mirrored by her stern face that she wore as she looked at him.

Her weapon on the other hand was invisible judging by the wind currents concentrating near her hand meaning that the faker couldn't tell if she was holding a sword, axe or even a mace.

The second servant that the Emiya had summoned on his left was exactly like the first except with a few key differences, first was the white dress that she wore which exposed her back as well as the silver armor on her chest, arms, hips and leg areas. Like her twin she also had an air of royalty around her but it was more 'friendly' then her counterpart and wore a face that was softer but it was her eyes that differed from her twin as they spoke of experience like an old war veteran.

The white servant's weapon was visible unlike her counterpart and took the form of a golden oriental long sword with shades of blue on the handle, guard and base of the blade, there was also a series of letters etched into the blade that were written in a language that the faker couldn't read, in other words the sword she was holding was a king's weapon that was meant to be a symbol of their leadership and not a weapon for use in battle but judging from what he could tell from his **Structural Analysis **it had been wielded by the white knight for countless battles.

Another fact that he found out was the name of the golden sword in particular which was **Caliburn: the golden sword of assured Victory, **an A+ rank anti-unit noble phantasm, and the legendary sword in the stone that king Arthur pulled from the stone when many had failed in order to prove himself the rightful king of Britain, which according to his knowledge of Arthurian mythology was destroyed when Arthur broke the laws of chivalry in a battle against an unknown opponent.

The two servants in front of him were exotic, mysterious, but most of all they were Beautiful but also possessed a hint of muscularity giving them a sort of Bishouen appearance that leaned heavily on the female side of the spectrum.

Finally it seemed to Shirou that the two servants haven't noticed each-over's existence yet as they looked at him and said at the same time.

"Servant Saber/Rider has heeded your summons, I ask you are you my master?"

Suddenly the two of them noticed that there was another person beside their master and turned towards the source of the noise, only to stare at each over in shock.

The blue Saber was the first to recover as she raised her invisible weapon against her doppelganger and shouted, "What is the meaning of this? Who are you?" obviously unnerved at seeing someone with her face.

It seemed that the feeling was mutual as the clearly distressed white knight looked at her twin "that's my line who are you? And why do you look like me?"

Normally the blue knight would have answered this question and demanded that the servant reveal who she was but she had more pressing matters to address as she recognized the sword her twin was holding which should be impossible as it shouldn't exist anymore.

"**Caliburn!?** But that's possible, where did you get that?" she asked surprised at seeing her old weapon that she had wielded before she came to possess Excalibur.

"What are you talking about?" **Caliburn **has always been my sword, what I want to know is how do you know of it" the woman known as Rider asked her twin who looked at her like she was crazy.

Suddenly the two of them noticed a golden blue scabbard that was resting on a pedestal next to the both of them and stared in shock as they recognized it "Avalon?" they said surprised at the same time in ere synchronization but for different reasons.

Saber was surprised at seeing her long lost scabbard that was stolen from her just before the Battle of Camlainn due to Morgan le Fay's machinations and was of course happy to see it again but there was also curiosity as why it was here in the first place.

The White Rider on the other hand was shocked because the item in front of her eyes shouldn't exist, and this was because unlike her counterpart who was still alive and frozen in time between like and death she was already dead, so she had in turn ascended to the Throne of Heroes and become a true heroic spirit, meaning that she had both Excalibur and Avalon on her since they were a major part of her legend before passing them both to her Daughter Mordred before she passed on.

So even after being summoned into the Rider class she still had them on her along with her steed Lliamrei since they were such an internal part of her legend, and yet she still recognized it as her scabbard despite her common sense telling her that it was impossible.

Deciding that she needed answers White Rider and her twin turned to the only other person in the room and said "Master what is going on here and who is she?" they both said in synchronization pointing at each over.

As for Shirou though he was just as confused as they were at the situation, after all the ritual he performed was supposed to have summoned one servant and not two, also based on what he had heard just now meant that the two of them were defiantly connected to King Arthur if both of them were able to recognize both **Caliburn** and **Avalon**, but the main question on his mind at the moment was which of them was the king of knights?

However their questions were cut short for the moment as the two servants sensed the presence of a servant outside the tool shed, which made Shirou remember that Rider was still outside and had probably recovered by now.

It was then that the blue Saber looked at her twin and said "It seems that we will have to continue this later servant, can I trust you to look after our master while I deal with the enemy outside?" the white Rider of course wasn't too enthusiastic with this but decided to relent for now as there was only one servant outside, plus as servants their master was their top priority.

So after seeing her doppelganger nod her head in agreement Saber headed towards the entrance and addressed Shirou "Master please stay here with her for the time being, I will deal with the enemy"

At hearing her say that Shirou suddenly remembered what Riders true identity was and grabbed Sabers arm before she headed out which surprised her before the faker said "Wait before you go out there watch out for her eyes, her true identity is the gorgon Medusa and possesses the **Mystic Eyes of Petrifaction"**

At hearing this Saber was shocked that her master had already learned the true identity of one of the servants this early in the game before going over the info that the grail provided her after learning Riders true identity, since she herself had A rank magic resistance she would be able to resist the affects of Riders eyes in exchange with receiving a rank down in all parameters.

But since almost all of her stats were A's and B's the servants abilities wouldn't be affected that much and make the decision on what to do next "I see…thank you for telling me master, please stay here and rest" Saber said before she _Leaped _out of the tool shed.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Outside of the tool shed Medusa, the legendary gorgon of Greece, and a heroic spirit summoned as servant Rider was currently considering making a run for it as fast as her agility could carry her as she doubted that she would survive long if she stayed.

After she was punched out of the tool shed my the magus that she was trying to kill she was currently holding her eyes in pain after she landed since the bright flash emitted by her target had temporarily blinded her, as she lay there she was seriously considering tearing that human apart for all the trouble he was putting her through at the moment.

However she decided to rethink her strategy after she felt the summoning of not one but **two **servants in the shed that she had been launched out off., which didn't make any sense to Rider as the Holy Grail can only support 7 servants for the war and yet that monster of a master hand managed to summon two of them make the total number of 8 heroic spirits called for war.

It was after feeling that and having recovered enough of her vision to see two additional figures in the tool shed that the gorgon of Greece decided right then and there that she needed to get out of there as fast as she could, because in her current condition there was no way she would be able to face a fleshly summoned servant let alone two in her state.

Of course she had to pause her thoughts for now as she heard a war cry from the shed as one of the summoned servants leaped at her intending to strike her down from above, luckily for Rider she managed to roll to the side in time to witness the armored girl land and cause a large cloud of dust and dirt that resulted from her overhead strike.

Seeing that her opponent dodged her last attack Saber felt the pressure form the enemy servant's eyes affect her as she looked at the king of knights but luckily for the blond haired swordsman her A rank Magic resistance managed to negate the effect somewhat and proceeded to charge at her current enemy who was all fours.

"Stop fleeing and face me coward" She shouted as Rider continued to dodge her blows every time the king of knights went in for the kill, seeing that there was no there was no way for her to escape without using her other trump card Medusa leaped towards the other side of the yard and then looked at Saber.

"I see now, you truly are the strongest class Saber if you were able to still best me despite my eyes trying to turn you to stone, it is unfortunate for you that this little battle of ours will have to be delayed for another time" Rider said as she make clear her intensions to run away and fight another day.

However Saber had other ideas "Sorry but I am afraid I cannot do that Rider, for you see I intend to finish this as it would be foolish for an enemy to escape now while I have her at my mercy" as she made her ultimatum she gripped her invisible weapon ready to strike the servant down.

Unfortunately for the king of knights Rider had other ideas "A shame that it will not come to pass" as she raised her nail dagger higher to the same height as her head and much to the shock of the blue Saber plunged the weapon through her neck.

As blood flowed out of the gorgons wound as she grasped her neck to stop the bleeding something strange happened as the blood that Rider spilled with her self inflicted injury seemed to float in midair and form a complex runic circle, suddenly Sabers instincts went into overdrive as a giant eye appeared in the middle of the circle and released a bright stream of white light that narrowly missed Saber as she managed to get away.

"Wait" the king of knights shouted as she got back up only to see Rider riding the white light that was vaguely shaped like a winged horse and riding off into the distance, seeing that her prey managed to escape Saber bit her lip in frustration before deciding that there were more important issues to address.

Such as the red haired boy who managed to summon her along side her white clad twin who were exiting the tool shed carrying her Scabbard **Avalon **in tow "Is she gone now? Her possible master asked weakly as he was leaking sweat from every part of his body along with his skin that was covered in bruises and looking a pit pale, in other words he was in such a state that the knight was wondering how he was still able to move I the state that he was in.

"Unfortunately that is the case master, I am sorry that I was unable to finish her off when I had the chance" the king of knights said as Shirou replied back "Oh that's alright Saber I was just glad that everything turned out alright"

As Shirou said his thoughts the king of knights decided that she might as well complete the contract so that it's out of the way "I see, in that case magus were you the one who summoned me as your servant" hearing her say that Shirou remembered that he still needed to confirm his status as a master in order complete the contract between the two of them.

"I hope that you are not forgetting about me since I was summoned as well" Sabers doppelganger said as the other two looked at her before realizing that Shirou had somehow summoned two servants instead of one.

Realizing that she still needed answers as to why she looked like her so much Saber decided to get some answers" I didn't forget servant which is why I am asking you again who you are and why you seem to bear **Caliburn**" this seemed to intrigue Shirou as well since he had no idea who she white servant was.

Confused at the question as she thought that it would be obvious decided to tell them "Don't you already know? I am Arturia Pendragon, once and future Queen of Britannia, she who pulled Caliburn from the sword in the stone and acquired Excalibur from the lady of the lake" She then held up the traced copy of **Avalon **for them to see and continued 'That is why you used my scabbard as the catalyst to summon me, or at least a copy of it"

This had stunned the two of them for different reasons, Shirou was surprised that the servant in front of him was able to tell that the scabbard was a copy in such a small amount of time even though it was a perfect copy.

Saber on the other hand was shocked as the servant claimed that she was herself even though it was supposed to be illogical and decided to disclaim that claim "that's impossible for I am Arturia Pendragon, also known as King Arthur of Camalot".

Arturia then undid invisible air so that her twin could see it, which seemed to shock her as well "And **Excalibur** is my sword and mine alone, so I would ask you to stop with the tasteless jokes and tell me who you are right this instant" at first White Rider looked at **Excalibur** to check if she was seeing things right.

While **Caliburn **was more orientate and was meant as a king's weapon to show off his status, **Excalibur: the sword of promised victory** had less ornaments then its counterpart but had an air around it that just screamed power, plus it couldn't be called Beautiful cause such a word to describe it would be an insult to its true worth.

After seeing the blade Queen Arturia's mind was in deep thought as she pieced together the information that she collected since her summoning and said "I think I have an idea about what's happening here, but first I want to show you something"

She then held out her hand while holding **Caliburn **in her other, suddenly a golden light appeared around her armored hand before it disappeared revealing an exact copy of **Excalibur** in her hand which almost caused Saber to drop her version of the Sword of promised victory in shock.

"ha…ha….how?" King Arthur managed to croak out as she couldn't believe what she was seeing, which was understandable as she was facing an exact copy of her wielding **Excalibur **alongside her lost weapon **Caliburn.**

"I know what you are thinking Saber and yes this indeed **Excalibur: the sword of promised victory, **but a different version of the weapon that you wield" Shirou who had been listening in suddenly realized what White Rider was telling them almost hit himself for not realizing it sooner.

Saber who had heard what her twin was telling her widen her eyes in realization and said "you mean you're another version of me from a parallel world?" which was the only explanation that made sense to her as **Excalibur** was a unique and powerful weapon forged by the very planet itself to crystallize the concepts of Hope and victory.

"That seems to be the only explanation that I could think off given the circumstances though I am curious of how this came to pass in the first place" she then turned her head towards Shirou "Perhaps you can shed some light on this situation magus" who seemed to flinch a bit when Saber gave him a focused glance as she was curious about what he did during the summoning that would end up with him getting two servants instead of one.

Seeing no other options Shirou decided to come clean "To be perfectly honest I'm just as confused as you are at this situation but why don't I start this from the beginning."

However before he could do so a faint growling sound echoed throughout the yard which caused the twins to look at Shirou curiously before he realized that he hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime as he was too busy making sure that the summoning would go alright.

After scratching his head in embarrassment Shirou said, "sorry about that, I was so caught up in the events that transpired only a few minutes ago that I completely forgot that I didn't have anything to eat since this afternoon"

At hearing that excuse the two servants nodded their heads in agreement at the logic of his excuse "Understandable master, after all hunger is the enemy, we can finish this conversation after you are properly nourished if you want" the White Rider said before looking at Saber who nodded her head.

At first Shirou was going to ask if it was all right with the two of them but after hearing how they were insistent with their choice he decided to relent "okay then, in that case I'll go to the kitchen and whip up something simple since its late, do you two want anything?"

At this the twins were delighted to hear that even though servants don't need to eat or drink and he was feeding them enough prana to remain at full strength, after all if there was anything two had in common it was their appetite.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After Shirou let Saber and Rider White into the lounge he asked them to sit down while he cooked something up, of course the servants made sure to dematerialize their armour since it would be impractical to wear them indoors.

Of course Shirou being as tired that he was decided to cook something simple, since the two of them were obviously foreigners the faker decided to make western food and prepared two sets of toast and sunny side eggs for the three of them.

Of course they didn't last long as the twins practically inhaled their food, realizing that the two of them were hungrier then Shirou thought which he took as a personal challenge to his cooking skills, he then gave them his portion and went back to the kitchen to cook up something that would really quench their appetite.

Which was why he decided to bring out his secret weapon and grabbed the rest of eggs, some fried rice, cheese and some left over tofu from last night's dinner and constructed something that could only be described as a 'omelet with fried rice supreme size edition.'

In fact there was so much of it that it would not only be able to defeat the large stomach of his guardian but would still have some left over for lunch tomorrow, so after serving himself a small portion Shirou divided the remaining portion in tow and placed his secret weapon on the two servants plates.

Which turned into a curb stomp battle as the twins demolished the super omelet with fried rice, there wasn't even scraps left to tell what it looked like before.

"ahh, wonderful master I must admit that I was not expecting this level of quality cuisine at this time at night, truly you are a fine chef" Saber said as she put her chopsticks down with the grace and beauty befitting royalty.

"I concur, truly your culinary skills are among the finest that I have encountered in a long time master" White Rider added her two cents which developed mixed feelings for the red head.

At first he was flattered that two legendary heroes spoke so highly of his skills, but he was also worried about his bank account if the two of them kept eating this amount of food every day, and don't even get him started on the fact that the two of them could even pack it in with those tiny bodies of theirs and not gain any weight at all.

"Oh you don't have to over-praise my work like that, besides I don't think that my meager skills could have competed with the chefs at your beck and call" Shirou said before blinking as deep frowns seemed to develop on their beautiful.

"Oh don't worry Shirou, you're skills are better, much much better" Saber insisted which White Rider agreed with " indeed, don't sell your skills short master, the type of food that I consumed during my lifetime wasn't known for its quality.

Shirou was of course surprised to hear this considering the two of them had ruled their countries as queen and King in their home universes and that he thought that they would get the 'good' stuff considering their status, then again he couldn't honestly say that he was suspired at hearing this since Britain had managed to win the worlds worst cuisine more times then he could count.

After they finished their meals and Shirou took the plates to the kitchen to be washed he sat down with the two of them and said "okay then, so what should we talk about first"

"I think that we should compare our back stories first so as to compare them to each over" Saber said before looking at her twin "since the two of us were summoned using **Avalon **we need to determine which one of us was the servant you were trying to summon master"

"Alright, I guess you have a point there, but before the two of you start can I just ask a small request first?" Shirou asked which got Saber and her twin confused, as they were curious as to what their summoner wanted.

"Would it be alright if you stop calling me master all the time and instead address me by name instead, it just doesn't sit well with me if you two keep calling me master all the time." At hearing the unexpected request the twin servant stared at each over for a moment before making a silent agreement.

"Very well summoner we will do as you ask, yes I think that suits me just fine" Saber said in agreement before Rider White gave her answer "I agree with my sister here since it would draw less suspicion if we kept calling you master "

At this Arturia looked at her alternative self in annoyance "Since when were we sisters Rider" before Queen Arturia explained her reasoning to Saber "hey you have to admit that it's a perfectly acceptable explanation since we have the same genes, that and we need a cover story to explain why we are staying at his house since we can't go into spirit form."

Indeed what Queen Arturia said was true as the two servants had somehow been unable to go into spirit form since the two of them were summoned, when Shirou asked about it Saber reasoned that it might have had something to do with the abnormal summoning conditions that resulted in two servants instead of one.

After hearing her twins explanation King Arthur was forced to sigh in defeat as she had to admit that she had a point "very well we will go with that explanation for now, actually magus it seems that we still haven't been introduced properly"

This of course made Shirou blink before smacking his hand over his forehead as he totally fergot about that "Sorry Saber I totally forgot, my name is Shirou Emiya but you can call me Shirou if you like"

After hearing this the king of knights eyes widened after realizing that the person who summoned her had the same last name as her previous master which caused her to develop flashbacks near the end of the last war during the last time she was summoned.

"_Saber, by the order of my command seal I order you…to destroy the holy grail"_

"_Why Kiritsugu, why did it have to be you?"_

"_You would dare interrupt my wedding mongrel"_

"_By my second command seal I order you again"_

"_NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"_

"_Destroy the holy grail"_

After remembering the last moments of her previous summons the king of knights shook her head trying to get the memories of when Kiritsugu Emiya ordered her to destroy the grail and ruin any chance she had of erasing her past mistakes and saving her kingdom.

And yet someone who bears the same last name as her traitorous had summoned her again, meaning that she would have to look into this later "I see in that case I will call you Shirou from now on" besides she liked it better that way anyway.

After getting that out the way Shirou asked "So who wants to go first?" which Saber obliged by standing up and saying "I think its better if I go first, is that acceptable to you?" she said looking at her twin.

When Arturia saw her doppelganger nod her head in agreement she decided to start first " First off my name is Arturia Pendragon, the illegitimate daughter of Uther Pendragon who was the king of Brittania at the time and Lady Igraine, who was the wife of Gorlois the duke of Camlainn."

From there Saber proceeded to tell her master and White Rider about her life from the day that she was born, from being sent to sir Hector and his son Kay to be trained in the ways of the knight while hiding her true gender, to being traumatized by Merlin's 'training' in mage craft and gaining a dislike for old men who like to play pranks (in other words people like Zelretch).

When she turned 15 Arturia learned of her true heritage as the heir of the late king Uthur Pendragon and went to a sacred jousting ground in order to try and pulled out **Caliburn** which was imbedded in a rock (Which proves to Shirou that the sword in the stone was indeed Caliburn and not Excalibur) in order to prove her right as king.

From there a time of peace and prosperity followed for Brittania under King Arthur's rule after she united the fractured lands of her home and fought off the invading Argo Saxon armies, however even Saber made mistakes as she fought against a stronger and more experienced knight even though those around her told the cross-dressing girl that she wasn't ready, which cost her both the match and her sword Caliburn.

At first Arturia was in distress until Merlin told her about Vivian the lady of the lake and to go to her in order to get a new weapon for the king of knights, when she arrived she was greeted by the lady who proceeded to tell king Arthur that what Merlin told her was true however there was a price for Vivian's services.

First in order to give Saber the weapon that she desired she must first swear that the king of knights would fulfill a small favor that the lady of the lake intends to collect in the future, after giving the offer some thought Saber reliantly agreed and was gifted with **Excalibur: the sword of promised Victory, **and its scabbard **Avalon: all is a distant utopia.**

After that she then gathered talented soldiers from around the country and made them knights in order to serve her and protect the kingdom; these included her adopted father and brother Sir Hector and Kay, her cousin Gawain who also received a mystical fey weapon called **Galantine: the reborn sword of victory** from Vivian the lady of the Lade, and Vivian's adopted son Lancelot who accepted after his mother called in the favor for lending Saber the sword of promised victory.

From there the knights that gathered eventually became the **knights of the round table, **a gathering of soldiers where everyone seated will be heared and judjed equally regardless of title, rank, or experience and would also serve as Arturia's inner circle.

However not everyone in her kingdom such as the old nobility were happy with her decision as her forces grew (such as appointing a mere castle guard into a knight called Bedivere) due to the backgrounds that the appointed knights as they were mix between old and new nobility, middle class citizens and even peasants.

Keep in mind that this happened during the 'dark ages' where knights from old families weren't exactly noble per say and only those from rich noble families can become knights and mark the beginnings of what would be later known as the codes of chivalry so it would be obvious that King Arthur would make a fare share of enemies.

However her decision in the end was the right one as the knights personally appointed by her saw to it to take care of any enemies that came their way, including Morigana, Arturia's half-sister from her birth mothers previous marriage and who had swore vengeance on Uthur Pendragon after he banished her to a nunnery for being a constant reminder of his enemy the Duke of Cornwall, and his wife who failed to give him a male heir like he wanted.

Also in order to strengthen her rule she married Lady Guinevere as her queen in order to improve the masquerade that she was a male.

From there King Arthur ruled from Camalot and brought a golden age for the white isle, however this didn't last as several factors happened that built up causing a catastrophe that would bring the downfall of Brittania.

The first factor was ironically how Arturia ruled, for when King Arthur pulled the sword from the stone she resolved to forgo her humanity and become the perfect king that would make all the right decisions, however this in turn caused her to alienate her subjects and caused a few of her knights to leave while one in particular left a message that would haunt her for the rest of her days.

"_King Arthur cannot understand people"_

However things didn't stop there as Arturia discovered that Guinevere and her knight Lancelot had fallen in love, naturally due to the fact that King Arthur and Queen Guinevere's marriage was staged in order to hide Arturia's true gender the king of knights gave the two lovers her blessing as long as the affair was kept secret.

However things took a turn for the worse when some enemies of the crown found out about the forbidden romance and exposed it to the public, so in order save face in the eyes of the public Arturia was forced to sentence Guinevere to death for the crime of adultery.

But that never came to pass as Lancelot interrupted the execution and fled with Queen Guinevere killing some of his comrades in the process, after this was over the public called for the traitorous knights head but Saber instead spared her friends life.

The last nail on her kingdoms coffin came when Arturia's Scabbard **Avalon** was stolen meaning that she needed some other way to keep her weapon sheathed, this desire cultivated in the creation of **Invisible Air: Hammer of the wind king, **a wind-based bounded field mystery that covers **Excalibur **in overlaying coats of wind that bend the light around it making the blade invisible, Merlin had taught her this technique after basing the concept on one of the daggers Arturia used in her younger years. 

After that she then traveled to the collapsing Roman Empire in order to seek aid against the increasing Argo-Saxon invasion force, however while she was gone her illegitimate son Mordred (who was a homunculus created by Morigana using Arturia's sperm after Merlin gave the king of knights a penis as a joke, in order to succeed the throne) a member of the round table and a traitor who gathered all the knights and noble's unsatisfied with King Arthurs rule.

When she got back she was greeted with the sight of her country engulfed in a civil war between Mordred's rebel army and the remaining knights loyal to Arturia which nearly brought her to the brink of despair, however she buried those feelings and joined her armies efforts in pushing back the rebel army, which eventually cultivated in the Battle of Camlann, and also served as the Final last stand of king Arthur as he suffered a mortal blow from Mordred after having her scabbard stolen.

When Saber finished her tale of her life Shirou and White had a pained look on his face, as he didn't know what to say, after all he had just learned the true story behind the legend of King Arthur, who was in reality a little girl who tried to do everything by her self from day one and ended up alienating her most trusted friends in the process.

White Rider on the other hand had a look of sadness on her face at the kind of hardships her alternative self endured and wondered if she had gone down that path if she had been a little different back then.

Deciding that it was time to ask if she was in the right world Saber asked "Well Shirou? Is my story familiar to you?" of course after hearing that Shirou's answer was obvious as he said "yes, King Arthur in the legend that I am familiar with was always depicted as a male, plus the details on your parents, Merlin, Excalibur and Caliburn, the knights, and the rebellion is all there"

After hearing this White Rider decided to speak her mind "I see, glad we sorted that mess out without doing anything drastic" she then pointed her finger at Saber and said "you are obviously this world's version of king Arthur since the legends depict you as a man, while I am obviously from a parallel world different from this one" she then put her hand by her head in a 'posh lady pose' and sighed "And to think I didn't believe Merlin's lectures on the true magic's."

Just then Arturia developed a question mark over her head "true magics? When was this Rider? Because I don't remember that at all" which caused Rider to look at her asking her with her eyes if she was serious before nodding and decided to feed Saber's curiosity.

"Well when I was training with Merlin he decided to tell me about a lecture about the true magic's and how they were going to decrease over time when science improves over the years,

"However the main point was that unlike thaumaturgy which can do things that science could as well, True magic on the other hand allows its practitioner to use miracles on a completely different level such as time travel, perfect preservation of the soul, and parallel world manipulation"

In fact Queen Arturia told her audience that one of these magicians was an old friend of merlin's and that he was coming round later for a chat and some tea, against her better judgment the young Queen asked her teacher who that person was.

Merlin then told her that the person was the master of the second magic aka Parallel operation and that he was an old vampire that doesn't drink blood, however the fact that chilled her spine the most was that he was a chronic prankster like Merlin and not above using the second for his own amusement.

Naturally as she heard this the future Queen Arturia used as much as her dragon blood enhanced abilities to make a run for it out the door at top speed and ran away from Merlin's workshop as fast as possible as the thought of another person with Merlin's prankster tendencies terrified the girl to no end.

In fact King Arthur had a pale look on her face at the thought of two people like that under the same roof with her.

Shirou obviously noticed that this was not something he wanted to dig into deeper if he wanted his sanity to remain intact and quickly changed the subject "Actually Rider I have a suggestion, how about we change your code name to something else since I already met the Rider of this war and that you're an 8th servant"

Silently thanking her master from saving her from that mental image Queen Arturia thought of it a bit and agreed "An excellent idea Shirou, in that case I will be known as Lily, is that acceptable to you your majesty"

At hearing this Saber agreed with her masters decision, as it will avoid confusion when dealing with the two servants, with that settled the king of knight nodded her head in agreement and said "very well that is acceptable Lily, however there is a more important issue to address.

Saber then turned her head towards Shirou and said "master, I am afraid that due to the fact that you have summoned two servants instead of one, you won't be able to properly supply us with the necessary prana levels to be effective due to the miniscule about of prana I could feel from our link"

At hearing this the faker did something that his two servants didn't expect and smack his hand over his forehead hard, he the sheepishly apologized to the servant "Sorry about that Saber, the truth is that I used up all of my circuits during the summoning so I left only a few on to fell the connection, just hold on a sec."

He then checked his nerve circuits to see if they were in good condition after using so much prana during the summoning and was surprised to find that almost all of them were in excellent condition with the minority slightly worn out, deciding to check this out later the fake activated two pairs of 250 golden threads and connected each group to his servants.

Seeing that the connection was working just fine Shirou said "okay that's done, do the two of you feel any different?" only to blink at the strange expressions that his servants were giving him.

Saber wore a face of shock as her current master supplied her with a level of prana that dwarfed even her old master Kiritsugu, with her stats being solid A's all round except endurance which was A+ and mana that had a astonishing rank of A++, it was then that the king of knights had realized just how powerful her current master was and there was a very high chance that they would finally be able to gain the grail after having it stolen from her grasp during the last war, even if Shirou had a relation to the traitor Kiritsugu Emiya.

Lily on the other hand had a different reaction to her master's powerful reserves then her counterpart as he had a look of both amazement and curiosity at the kind of person her master was to possess so many circuits "Incredible master I can practically feel your reserves flow into me, just how much prana are you feeding us?"

At this Shirou blinked and said "about a fourth of my total reserves"

…..

…..

…..

Time seemed to stop as the servants processed what they were just told by their master, which didn't seem real to them as the prana he was feeding the two versions of Arturia Pendragon equaled about around 5000 units of prana (that's 5 times what Rin can produce even with her crest) if what the fake said was true then Shirou can produce over 20000 units of prana when the right conditions were met.

However that didn't make any sense to Lily as no human magus that she personally knew from her time had that many circuits, the only people capable of making up that much energy would be homunculi, vampires, or those with special 'blue blood' circuits.

Seeing that she needed answers the queen of knight walked up to her master and said "Shirou, can I ask you something very important?" at being confused at this question nodded his head before Lily asked "now I mean no disrespect at this, but are you even human?"

At this unexpected question Saber could only stare at her alternative before admitting that she had the same thought since no normal human born in the modern era can possess that level of prana.

When the faker heard this he calmly shook his head and replied, "look I can understand your skepticism Lily but I assure you that I am 100% human, I just have circuits that are different then the normal variety"

"Normal variety? How so?" Lily asked as she was one step closer to finding out more about her mysterious master who decided to continue "well when I was training with my adopted Father before he died he told me the method to opening a magus's circuits, so I tried it out by turning one of my nerves into a circuit."

"However when I tried it out every circuit that I made would collapse after every use and even then my success rate in regards to thaumaturgy was pretty low, It wasn't until dad died that I found a way to make my created circuits permanent without them disappearing after every use and proceeded to create one every night for 5 years"

He then scratched the back of his head in embarrassment as he admitted something else "Although when I met Rin Tohsaka, who was the second owner of Fuyuki, she told me that I had been doing it wrong for years as circuits weren't created at all, you were born with them already in you and the exercise was to open them up so prana can be passed through them."

"Of course her reaction to my nerve circuits was a little extreme considering I had little to no knowledge on the inner workings of magic circuits so I was a little surprised when she shouted at the top of her lungs at close range but after she explained it to me I could see where she was coming from."

Of course that was an understatement considering that after the Tohsaka heir found out the fakers new prana levels she spent days in her workshop wondering how the hell a 1st generation magus like Shirou managed to achieve a level of power that surpassed even a Dead Apostle Ancestor and wondered out loud how the magus association would react to this news.

At hearing this the two servants were dumbstruck at finding out that not only had their master had been converting his nerves into circuits without dying each time and had done so countless times before they met, but had even made them permanent in the process despite not knowing how Shirou did it in the first place.

"Ah I think I can understand your friends frustration over this issue Shirou, after all not only did you gain a level of power that generations of magi would have spent centuries to achieve, but you also summoned two servants instead of one which hasn't been done before, and it was all done through ridiculous levels of luck as such a procedure would have killed you a thousand times over" Lily said as she complimented her master.

Although technically speaking a double summon had been done before during the third war when the Edelfeit sisters called two different aspects of one heroic spirit, however Shirou Emiya and his two servants didn't know that fact so it was a mood point.

At this Shirou could only sigh at his servant's blunt comment and said "Thanks for the praise Lily I really appreciate it, though I kind of wish that dad taught be properly those years ago or that I had actually asked him for advise so I didn't make any mistakes and end up shoving metaphysical lava through my veins every night"

That last comment caused Lily and Saber to flinch as Shirou had casually mentioned the kind of pain he went through every night in order attain his level of power, well on the plus side the faker has an extremely high pain tolerance due to his training and would probably last quite a while during a fight.

"I can only imagine" Saber said deciding she might as well share her two cents " Regardless of the results you achieved Shirou what you did was both incredibly reckless and suicidal, however since it was your decision alone and since you managed to stay alive through it you acquired a power unlike no other, though I am curious as to how you were able to pull it off" the king of knights said as she was curious as to how her master managed to make permanent circuits from his nerves.

"I believe I can answer that?" Lily said as Saber and Shirou looked at her to see if she really had answers "Well you know how normal magic circuits are located in the soul and the ones found in the body are physical representations of them, well after going over what I knew of masters nerve circuits I believe I came up with a solution on how he was able to do it."

"Somehow he was able to make a converted nerve circuit permanent by fusing it directly to his soul via his brain connection which serves as the anchor that binds the soul to the body, of course this is purely conjecture and wouldn't hold a candle without proper research but I am a Queen not a magus, besides I'm not that fond of magi cutting up their research subjects to see how they tick" as lily finished her explanation she was greeted with the dumbstruck faces of her comrades.

Saber was the first to recover as she said, "Lily, how was it that you knew all that?" as the king of knights had no idea that her alternative self had such thorough knowledge of the mystic arts. After hearing this Lily replied "Oh that? Well its just that I spent a little of my spare time improving my mage craft skills since my training with Merlin was incomplete, though my sister did help."

"Your…..Sister?" Saber asked before her mind worked like clock work as she only had one person related to her by blood that fit that description, deciding that she needed answers the king of knights was just about to ask her twin about her Sister when she felt a disturbance outside that felt like a servant.

Shirou of course sensed this two as he felt the command seals on both of his hands heat up causing him a jolt of pain, it was then that he remembered that he was supposed to meet up with Tohsaka-san after he summoned his servant so that they could plan out their strategy for the war, opon seeing Saber run for the front door he quickly shouted "Saber wait a second"

"Shirou there is a servant outside at this moment, it would be more beneficial if we made the first attack" Saber said wanting nothing more then to attack the enemy outside.

"I see your point Saber but I don't think their here to fight, you see the bounded field around my house can tell if any people who enter have malicious intent or not, and right now I can tell the person outside isn't hostile" he the got up and walked towards the king of knights.

"You can go outside with me to check them out but I don't want you to attack them without my permission first, do I make myself clear?" it was clear that even though Shirou Emiya had full intentions on entering the war in order to reduce the number of civilian casualties as possible it was clear to the servant that this meant the enemy masters as well.

After staring at her master the king of knight's relented and said "very well Shirou but I want you to stay behind me while I take the lead" she then looked at her twin and said "can I trust you to guard his rear Lily?"

Upon seeing Queen Arturia nod in agreement the master and his servant headed for the front door and opened it fully geared for a fight, however this was for not as the faker was greeted with the familiar sight of a certain black haired, red shirt wearing magus and her red clad white haired guardian on his front.

"Oh Tohsaka is that you? Glad to see your doing alright" Shirou said as he viewed his friend who strangely was staring at the two servants in front and behind him with the fine impression of a bleached fish, after the black haired magus recovered she glared at Shirou and said.

"Emiya-Kun…. What the hell is going on here!"

**To be continued **

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**Hello Viewers Epicgamer484 here, sorry if this chapter was a little late but various things happened that prevented me from completing it faster but its here now so hurray.**

**As you can see I tried to make the fight between Shirou vs Rider as even as possible without focusing on either of them and I just want your feedback on it since its by first proper fight scene in this fic, also as you could see Shirou's stats using prana burst would make him an even match against the weakened Rider since Shinji can't supply her with prana, however it is possible for him to get stronger if he took many hits using the Runic arrays on his back.**

**Also I am quite pleased with my review count as it had reached over 100 reviews so I hope that you will continue this in the future when I post this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate say night or the characters featured in this fic, they are the property of Type-moon, besides if I did then I would make an Illya route.**


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